FPT HYUFD 10:03AM edited 10:07AM OldKingCole said: » show previous quotes Well, I was there, and there was a widespread feeling that we'll all be dead soon in a nuclear war. Girls who got pregnant were thrown out of school and often their families. Homosexuals were imprisoned...... and the police used to hang about places where they were believed to congregate to make some easy arrests. People were executed for crimes they didn't commit.
We were working to make the world better. But then youth often does! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- For social conservatives who take a traditional line on the family there were fewer unmarried mothers in the 1950s, fewer divorces, homosexuality was only practised behind closed doors and abortion was not legal and contraception was not openly available so sex was largely solely within marriage. Immigration was also more tightly controlled. Many support capital punishment today too.
In Truman and Ike and Attlee and Churchill there were also leaders prepared to stand up for the West.
For socialists most of the main industries were nationalised, most industries were heavily unionised and there was a higher top rate of tax, so they also preferred the 1950s too.
The only people who really would have hated the 1950s are liberals and libertarians
As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives. As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel. In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.
I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.
The pill was not available on the NHS until 1967.
The UK had a more socialist economy in the 1950s and more socially conservative laws, that is just fact.
If you are a liberal you may welcome the changes since then, if you are a social conservative you will not as indeed if you are a socialist you would prefer a pre Thatcher society economically even if you welcome the social liberalism since then
You may recall that I was a pharmacist, back in the day; I was supplying other forms of contraception and occasionally advising on Family Planning before the pill became available, and, without wishing to nit-pick, it was in fact available on private prescription, for several years before 1967.
The laws were what they were, but what I am saying, having been a teenager in the 50's and having teenage (and older) grandchildren now, that, as I said before there's a lot wrong today, but young people are by no means as shafted by the system as they were then. Their life opportunities are much greater.
It's not unusual to pine for a more certain past. In reunited Germany, it's called Ostalgie. In 1980s Spain, rightists claimed "life was better under Franco" and some liberals said "life was better against Franco". The same dynamic crops up in the Mail, Express and Telegraph here and now.
And some of that is sincere- it can be nicer to live in a stable community where everyone knows your name. It's just that comes with costs, which are often unacknowledged and which people often don't want to pay if they're made explicit. Take Higher Education- it might be better if people can get decent non-graduate jobs that let them stay in Hometwown and not have to move away... but very few parents and grandparents would be happy if it was their child who was denied a place at university. Same with grammar schools- very popular right up to the second that it's your child who gets sent to a secondary modern.
But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.
And some of what we're seeing is pining for 1950's / early 1960's society as a fetish for something else. Most of us look back fondly on the decade where we were young adults- irrespective of what wider society was like, for us it was a time of excitement and new possibilities. And a gentle (or not-so-gentle) push against the crusties in the generation above. Not only do we want that time back, anything that deviates from that time is potentially perverted and wrong.
Basically, Douglas Adam's Law of Technology applies to social norms as well;
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. 2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. 3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.
And we look back fondly on the past with the certainty - denied to us of the present - of knowing that it all turned out pretty much ok in the end.
Surely that is "cheating"? The 1950s could easily have ended up in communist victory or nuclear war?
But it didn't, and we are still here. And knowing that it didn't takes away, when we look back wistfully at the 50s, the veneer of angst that those who lived through it (I'm told) experienced. Ditto any other decade and what existential worries we had at the time. That's why everything looks rosier in the past.
FPT HYUFD 10:03AM edited 10:07AM OldKingCole said: » show previous quotes Well, I was there, and there was a widespread feeling that we'll all be dead soon in a nuclear war. Girls who got pregnant were thrown out of school and often their families. Homosexuals were imprisoned...... and the police used to hang about places where they were believed to congregate to make some easy arrests. People were executed for crimes they didn't commit.
We were working to make the world better. But then youth often does! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- For social conservatives who take a traditional line on the family there were fewer unmarried mothers in the 1950s, fewer divorces, homosexuality was only practised behind closed doors and abortion was not legal and contraception was not openly available so sex was largely solely within marriage. Immigration was also more tightly controlled. Many support capital punishment today too.
In Truman and Ike and Attlee and Churchill there were also leaders prepared to stand up for the West.
For socialists most of the main industries were nationalised, most industries were heavily unionised and there was a higher top rate of tax, so they also preferred the 1950s too.
The only people who really would have hated the 1950s are liberals and libertarians
As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives. As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel. In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.
I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.
The pill was not available on the NHS until 1967.
The UK had a more socialist economy in the 1950s and more socially conservative laws, that is just fact.
If you are a liberal you may welcome the changes since then, if you are a social conservative you will not as indeed if you are a socialist you would prefer a pre Thatcher society economically even if you welcome the social liberalism since then
You may recall that I was a pharmacist, back in the day; I was supplying other forms of contraception and occasionally advising on Family Planning before the pill became available, and, without wishing to nit-pick, it was in fact available on private prescription, for several years before 1967.
The laws were what they were, but what I am saying, having been a teenager in the 50's and having teenage (and older) grandchildren now, that, as I said before there's a lot wrong today, but young people are by no means as shafted by the system as they were then. Their life opportunities are much greater.
It's not unusual to pine for a more certain past. In reunited Germany, it's called Ostalgie. In 1980s Spain, rightists claimed "life was better under Franco" and some liberals said "life was better against Franco". The same dynamic crops up in the Mail, Express and Telegraph here and now.
And some of that is sincere- it can be nicer to live in a stable community where everyone knows your name. It's just that comes with costs, which are often unacknowledged and which people often don't want to pay if they're made explicit. Take Higher Education- it might be better if people can get decent non-graduate jobs that let them stay in Hometwown and not have to move away... but very few parents and grandparents would be happy if it was their child who was denied a place at university. Same with grammar schools- very popular right up to the second that it's your child who gets sent to a secondary modern.
But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.
And some of what we're seeing is pining for 1950's / early 1960's society as a fetish for something else. Most of us look back fondly on the decade where we were young adults- irrespective of what wider society was like, for us it was a time of excitement and new possibilities. And a gentle (or not-so-gentle) push against the crusties in the generation above. Not only do we want that time back, anything that deviates from that time is potentially perverted and wrong.
Basically, Douglas Adam's Law of Technology applies to social norms as well;
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. 2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. 3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.
If the majority of people would like to live in a stable community where everyone knows their name, would you accept that decision, or should the minority view prevail?
@matthiasfromhamburg - thank you for your reply (vanilla won't let me quote you for some reason)
I did wonder about the FPTP seats, but I only went back to 2002 when I saw that their predecessors won two FPTP seats but then didn't get given their PR seats. Now I know why.
So I guess the question is, will Die Linke get three FPTP seats? They got five last time out - one by a very small margin in Leipzig - but the other four in Berlin look fairly solid, though only because of a very split opposition. I wonder if the resurgence of the SPD may be a threat to Die Linke in a couple of those?
And on the overhang seats, I think it's a mad system, but they I guess there aren't concerns about costs.
It is an interesting system i agree, but no more madder than our system of FPTP.
In Scotland and Wales they have a similar system but no overhang seats as the regional seats are "Additional". In Germany, the "second vote" is deemed to be the more important vote for calculations, so the calculated number of seats per party subsumes the first set of seats.
FPT HYUFD 10:03AM edited 10:07AM OldKingCole said: » show previous quotes Well, I was there, and there was a widespread feeling that we'll all be dead soon in a nuclear war. Girls who got pregnant were thrown out of school and often their families. Homosexuals were imprisoned...... and the police used to hang about places where they were believed to congregate to make some easy arrests. People were executed for crimes they didn't commit.
We were working to make the world better. But then youth often does! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- For social conservatives who take a traditional line on the family there were fewer unmarried mothers in the 1950s, fewer divorces, homosexuality was only practised behind closed doors and abortion was not legal and contraception was not openly available so sex was largely solely within marriage. Immigration was also more tightly controlled. Many support capital punishment today too.
In Truman and Ike and Attlee and Churchill there were also leaders prepared to stand up for the West.
For socialists most of the main industries were nationalised, most industries were heavily unionised and there was a higher top rate of tax, so they also preferred the 1950s too.
The only people who really would have hated the 1950s are liberals and libertarians
As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives. As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel. In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.
I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.
The pill was not available on the NHS until 1967.
The UK had a more socialist economy in the 1950s and more socially conservative laws, that is just fact.
If you are a liberal you may welcome the changes since then, if you are a social conservative you will not and the 1950s were your ideal decade. Of course we had more grammar schools then too.
If you are a socialist you would prefer a pre Thatcher society economically even if you welcome the social liberalism since then and the 1960s or 1970s were more your preferred decade
Thank goodness that 1950s style "social conservativism" is dead and buried.
Treating women as second class citizens, imprisoning people because of their sexuality, people freely abused because of the colour of their skin, people compelled to have unwanted babies because of an absence of birth control or abortion, and people executed for crimes they didn't commit.
Think of that nowadays and you'd think of an impoverished third world nation. Not quite the Taliban but not good by any means.
Good riddance to that and may it never be seen again!
Yes but you are a libertarian not a social conservative, so that just proves my point.
Your preferred era was most likely the 1980s or New Labour era.
There are also plenty of BME social conservatives too (not just the Taliban) who are anti abortion, prefer the traditional family and think there is too much divorce now and want tougher law and order and would prefer more grammar schools as we used to have
Right wing libertarians are generally also social conservatives. They think government should be very very light touch, giving them the right to have as much prejudice as possible without being held to account by the law. I don't think you would find many LGBT or black people in America calling themselves libertarian. Plenty of people who like dressing up in tall white hats and burning crosses (what is that about ffs?) would describe themselves as such.
The UK is not America. Americans use liberal as a synonym for big state socialists too.
They butcher the English language so let's not use their terminologies here.
Sadly I don't have the time to debate at the moment, but I politely suggest that you seem a little confused (and it is your prerogative) over whether you are a liberal conservative or a libertarian. Based on the views you just expressed with respect to social conservatism, I would suggest that if you hold these views you are largely liberal-conservative.
We all hold the views that we hold. They're not even necessarily even internally consistent, they certainly aren't all going to fit into one of five or six bundles of easily-labelled views.
Brief note: The Unibet odds were correct when this was posted and have shifted to 4/1 in the last few minutes. Just want to stress that the article was correct!
Was an excellent bet at 8/1, I'm surprised you didn't clear them out.
I also caught Hills and Betway napping, it seems no bookie is following this properly. Betway hasn't even limited me to £1.22 yet.
BF Ex was a bit slow a couple of weeks ago but now seems to be on it.
I was limited to £4 with Unibet, so figured I'd leave it to someone else who could actually take advantage. Totally agree though, this is a very simple case of the bookies being caught napping by fast-changing events.
PS: I dream of a day when a minimum staking law is passed in the UK. Not holding my breath.
It's supposed to be some smart way to stem their losses.
But let's start with the fact that, say PP, limit me to the same stakes on politics (mainly winners) and football or cricket (mainly losers).
Then consider that when I put £100 with Betway @ 17/1 - probably matching their total stake received to date - their system took the bet down. Makes sense. Then they put it back up at ... 15/1. No human review clearly.
Wandering off-topic, but I just feel that banning (or essentially banning) winning punters is:
1. Against the spirit of the enterprise; and 2. Encourages a business model of farming addicts and blocking sharps rather than trying to develop a healthy ecosystem of punters where sharps are used to improve the odds for the wider market, like Pinnacle does it.
If you have to allow winning punters... then that means you need more losing punters to make the same profit. I.e. you need more problem addicts?
It seems perfectly reasonable to me that bookies can refuse bets from people they normally lose to.
FPT HYUFD 10:03AM edited 10:07AM OldKingCole said: » show previous quotes Well, I was there, and there was a widespread feeling that we'll all be dead soon in a nuclear war. Girls who got pregnant were thrown out of school and often their families. Homosexuals were imprisoned...... and the police used to hang about places where they were believed to congregate to make some easy arrests. People were executed for crimes they didn't commit.
We were working to make the world better. But then youth often does! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- For social conservatives who take a traditional line on the family there were fewer unmarried mothers in the 1950s, fewer divorces, homosexuality was only practised behind closed doors and abortion was not legal and contraception was not openly available so sex was largely solely within marriage. Immigration was also more tightly controlled. Many support capital punishment today too.
In Truman and Ike and Attlee and Churchill there were also leaders prepared to stand up for the West.
For socialists most of the main industries were nationalised, most industries were heavily unionised and there was a higher top rate of tax, so they also preferred the 1950s too.
The only people who really would have hated the 1950s are liberals and libertarians
As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives. As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel. In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.
I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.
The pill was not available on the NHS until 1967.
The UK had a more socialist economy in the 1950s and more socially conservative laws, that is just fact.
If you are a liberal you may welcome the changes since then, if you are a social conservative you will not as indeed if you are a socialist you would prefer a pre Thatcher society economically even if you welcome the social liberalism since then
You may recall that I was a pharmacist, back in the day; I was supplying other forms of contraception and occasionally advising on Family Planning before the pill became available, and, without wishing to nit-pick, it was in fact available on private prescription, for several years before 1967.
The laws were what they were, but what I am saying, having been a teenager in the 50's and having teenage (and older) grandchildren now, that, as I said before there's a lot wrong today, but young people are by no means as shafted by the system as they were then. Their life opportunities are much greater.
It's not unusual to pine for a more certain past. In reunited Germany, it's called Ostalgie. In 1980s Spain, rightists claimed "life was better under Franco" and some liberals said "life was better against Franco". The same dynamic crops up in the Mail, Express and Telegraph here and now.
And some of that is sincere- it can be nicer to live in a stable community where everyone knows your name. It's just that comes with costs, which are often unacknowledged and which people often don't want to pay if they're made explicit. Take Higher Education- it might be better if people can get decent non-graduate jobs that let them stay in Hometwown and not have to move away... but very few parents and grandparents would be happy if it was their child who was denied a place at university. Same with grammar schools- very popular right up to the second that it's your child who gets sent to a secondary modern.
But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.
And some of what we're seeing is pining for 1950's / early 1960's society as a fetish for something else. Most of us look back fondly on the decade where we were young adults- irrespective of what wider society was like, for us it was a time of excitement and new possibilities. And a gentle (or not-so-gentle) push against the crusties in the generation above. Not only do we want that time back, anything that deviates from that time is potentially perverted and wrong.
Basically, Douglas Adam's Law of Technology applies to social norms as well;
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. 2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. 3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.
And we look back fondly on the past with the certainty - denied to us of the present - of knowing that it all turned out pretty much ok in the end.
Surely that is "cheating"? The 1950s could easily have ended up in communist victory or nuclear war?
But it didn't, and we are still here. And knowing that it didn't takes away, when we look back wistfully at the 50s, the veneer of angst that those who lived through it (I'm told) experienced. Ditto any other decade and what existential worries we had at the time. That's why everything looks rosier in the past.
To me it is cheating an attempt for a fair comparison.
An equivalent would be seeing the Premier League squads at the start of the 2015-6 and declaring Leicester the winners without playing the matches. Nearly all the time Leicester would not win.
Similarly if we re-ran the world from the 1950s endlessly, very few scenarios would end up similar to how we are now.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
The EU as a whole needs to decide between whether to align itself with the UK, and Putin. And for various reasons, I think it will end up coming to the view that the latter is the better decision. I think this, because the paradigm shift that has emerged with all the woke stuff has never gone very far in the EU: they will ultimately make a bargain with Putin in the same way that it did historically with NATO; it is just a pragmatic question of self interest.
From a pragmatic perspective a Paris-Berlin-Moscow power axis makes a lot of sense. It would be much more an alliance of equals than NATO and provide a credible counterweight to China.
I can't say that I particularly like this idea; but such an axis would ultimately benefit from the UK's involvement too. However, like the beginnings of the EU, it will take many years and anguish before the UK signs up to it.
Relying on kleptocrats for the foundation of international alliances isn't the greatest of ideas. Though apparently there are those in the Tory party who have cultivated Russian connections already.
Brief note: The Unibet odds were correct when this was posted and have shifted to 4/1 in the last few minutes. Just want to stress that the article was correct!
Was an excellent bet at 8/1, I'm surprised you didn't clear them out.
I also caught Hills and Betway napping, it seems no bookie is following this properly. Betway hasn't even limited me to £1.22 yet.
BF Ex was a bit slow a couple of weeks ago but now seems to be on it.
I was limited to £4 with Unibet, so figured I'd leave it to someone else who could actually take advantage. Totally agree though, this is a very simple case of the bookies being caught napping by fast-changing events.
PS: I dream of a day when a minimum staking law is passed in the UK. Not holding my breath.
It's supposed to be some smart way to stem their losses.
But let's start with the fact that, say PP, limit me to the same stakes on politics (mainly winners) and football or cricket (mainly losers).
Then consider that when I put £100 with Betway @ 17/1 - probably matching their total stake received to date - their system took the bet down. Makes sense. Then they put it back up at ... 15/1. No human review clearly.
Wandering off-topic, but I just feel that banning (or essentially banning) winning punters is:
1. Against the spirit of the enterprise; and 2. Encourages a business model of farming addicts and blocking sharps rather than trying to develop a healthy ecosystem of punters where sharps are used to improve the odds for the wider market, like Pinnacle does it.
If you have to allow winning punters... then that means you need more losing punters to make the same profit. I.e. you need more problem addicts?
It seems perfectly reasonable to me that bookies can refuse bets from people they normally lose to.
I would say that if bookies can't set their odds in a way to be profitable from recreational punters without farming addicts then they simply don't have a moral justification for operating. And being able to ban winners just encourages them not to bother doing the odds properly.
I also think it is particularly galling given their marketing! If bookies want to ban everyone who does well then their adverts should reflect that, rather than showing happy winners who in reality they do not permit.
"The Washington elite have turned on Biden. Watch out for the Harris presidency The media outlets which sold the wars, and sold Biden’s candidacy too, are now whispering that he’s past it DOMINIC GREEN"
Harris would be the first President not to be directly elected to the office since Ford if so.
She might do a slightly better job than Biden but I don't think she is electable in 2024 which would give Trump his chance to return to the Oval Office to get a delayed second term
@matthiasfromhamburg - thank you for your reply (vanilla won't let me quote you for some reason)
I did wonder about the FPTP seats, but I only went back to 2002 when I saw that their predecessors won two FPTP seats but then didn't get given their PR seats. Now I know why.
So I guess the question is, will Die Linke get three FPTP seats? They got five last time out - one by a very small margin in Leipzig - but the other four in Berlin look fairly solid, though only because of a very split opposition. I wonder if the resurgence of the SPD may be a threat to Die Linke in a couple of those?
And on the overhang seats, I think it's a mad system, but they I guess there aren't concerns about costs.
It is an interesting system i agree, but no more madder than our system of FPTP.
In Scotland and Wales they have a similar system but no overhang seats as the regional seats are "Additional". In Germany, the "second vote" is deemed to be the more important vote for calculations, so the calculated number of seats per party subsumes the first set of seats.
To be clear, it isn't PR that I think is mad - though I don't think it's necessarily better than FPTP - it's the overhang system that I find odd. I think a little bit of a bonus for the bigger parties would be good so as to reduce the need to talk to the smaller parties.
As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives. As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel. In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.
I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.
Says much about HYUFD that he's arguing with you on this.
I’ve heard that in the wee small hours when there’s nobody about, HYUFD argues deductively* and repetitively with himself, just for the practice.
On topic, and more seriously, if I read German polls aright the next question is less, how badly is Laschet going to do, than, ‘how the fuck do we get a government from that result?’
*Handwave Handwave* Grand Coalition of some kind *Handwave Handwave*
Handwave/handwaving is a phrase I have only ever witnessed on PB. I have never heard a single person use it IRL in all my born days.
Interesting. I got it from TVTropes and some Facebook friends who use it.
I've not been on it in years, but I got an awful lot of such phrases from TVTropes
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
If the SPD does win, it is an open question as to what kind of coalition they would lead. It may be Red/Green, or it could also be a "traffic light" with the FPD. These would both be quite a departure, but Red/Green would be more redical and less predictable than a traffic light coalition. If the CDU are indeed below 30% then it is hard to see that the Jamaica coalition (Black CDU, Gold FDP and Greens) is viable.
So in any event the exit of the CDU from the government would be a real shift and open up some real questions for the EU and NATO. After all former SPD leader Schroder, as chairman of Nordstream, has been a major advocate of a deal with Putin. If the SPD follows Schroder´s advice then France under Macron will be utterly horrified and there could be major EU ructions and some serious noise from the Eastern EU members too.
After the Kabul fiasco this could really mean that NATO is on its last legs... I sense very dangerous times ahead.
It is. It is totally dead. The Kabul airlift is probably its last act. It is now a completely hopeless operation, having lost all resolve. Its use is limited to large amounts of military hardware which it can use as a sort of bargaining chip whilst fleeing from adversaries.
The EU as a whole needs to decide between whether to align itself with the UK, and Putin. And for various reasons, I think it will end up coming to the view that the latter is the better decision. I think this, because the paradigm shift that has emerged with all the woke stuff has never gone very far in the EU: they will ultimately make a bargain with Putin in the same way that it did historically with NATO; it is just a pragmatic question of self interest.
Do you mean the UK is already aligned with Putin or they are alternatives for the EU? The UK is not really aligned with anyone at present and is very anti-EU under the current government, so not sure it has much of a role to play right now.
If Europe decides the America relationship is dead (I don't go along with this, but stick with it for the argument), I would say Russia is a bigger strategic threat to Europe than China and if anything they would be better going with an agreement of some kind with China.
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
Indeed, in the 1950s for most women the choice after they left school was to be a nurse, teacher or secretary, certainly if they were middle class maybe a factory or shop worker if they were working class, for a few years then give it up when they married and had children.
They then focused on their family and traditional skills like cooking, housework and needlework, not all were unhappy with that
As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives. As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel. In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.
I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.
Says much about HYUFD that he's arguing with you on this.
I’ve heard that in the wee small hours when there’s nobody about, HYUFD argues deductively* and repetitively with himself, just for the practice.
*reductively
Reminds me of Lewis Caroll's Father William: "In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law, And argued each case with my wife.."
I wonder how long it takes our friend and his new wife to decide who is going to do the washing up? Or similar?
As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives. As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel. In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.
I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.
Says much about HYUFD that he's arguing with you on this.
I am not a pure social conservative like Peter Hitchens, who certainly does prefer the 1950s.
I am socially conservative on some things like grammar schools and abortion, more liberal on homosexuality and on capital punishment would only consider it for serial killers.
However for pure social conservatives the 1950s was certainly the ideal decade
Only if you are a social conservative along the lines of a British Taliban!
Who wants homosexuality illegal and women fired for getting married?
People only remember the 'good' stuff. With rare exceptions people don't usually mean they want to go back to a simpler time when they say they want to go back to a simpler time.
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then...
Of course. But not a few of those look back now on what might have been with some degree of regret.
As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives. As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel. In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.
I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.
Says much about HYUFD that he's arguing with you on this.
I’ve heard that in the wee small hours when there’s nobody about, HYUFD argues deductively* and repetitively with himself, just for the practice.
*reductively
No, he argues deductively too. Though his axioms occasionally leave something to be desired.
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
I think it is a fair point overall. I think whilst most people would agree it is better now, and there were people fighting against the restrictions of the day or unknowingly being stifled at the time, it would be a mistake to assume every single woman was living in some fury at the situation (even if looking back some would argue they should have been). That isn't an argument to return to it, but a matter of context.
FPT HYUFD 10:03AM edited 10:07AM OldKingCole said: » show previous quotes Well, I was there, and there was a widespread feeling that we'll all be dead soon in a nuclear war. Girls who got pregnant were thrown out of school and often their families. Homosexuals were imprisoned...... and the police used to hang about places where they were believed to congregate to make some easy arrests. People were executed for crimes they didn't commit.
We were working to make the world better. But then youth often does! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- For social conservatives who take a traditional line on the family there were fewer unmarried mothers in the 1950s, fewer divorces, homosexuality was only practised behind closed doors and abortion was not legal and contraception was not openly available so sex was largely solely within marriage. Immigration was also more tightly controlled. Many support capital punishment today too.
In Truman and Ike and Attlee and Churchill there were also leaders prepared to stand up for the West.
For socialists most of the main industries were nationalised, most industries were heavily unionised and there was a higher top rate of tax, so they also preferred the 1950s too.
The only people who really would have hated the 1950s are liberals and libertarians
As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives. As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel. In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.
I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.
The pill was not available on the NHS until 1967.
The UK had a more socialist economy in the 1950s and more socially conservative laws, that is just fact.
If you are a liberal you may welcome the changes since then, if you are a social conservative you will not as indeed if you are a socialist you would prefer a pre Thatcher society economically even if you welcome the social liberalism since then
You may recall that I was a pharmacist, back in the day; I was supplying other forms of contraception and occasionally advising on Family Planning before the pill became available, and, without wishing to nit-pick, it was in fact available on private prescription, for several years before 1967.
The laws were what they were, but what I am saying, having been a teenager in the 50's and having teenage (and older) grandchildren now, that, as I said before there's a lot wrong today, but young people are by no means as shafted by the system as they were then. Their life opportunities are much greater.
It's not unusual to pine for a more certain past. In reunited Germany, it's called Ostalgie. In 1980s Spain, rightists claimed "life was better under Franco" and some liberals said "life was better against Franco". The same dynamic crops up in the Mail, Express and Telegraph here and now.
And some of that is sincere- it can be nicer to live in a stable community where everyone knows your name. It's just that comes with costs, which are often unacknowledged and which people often don't want to pay if they're made explicit. Take Higher Education- it might be better if people can get decent non-graduate jobs that let them stay in Hometwown and not have to move away... but very few parents and grandparents would be happy if it was their child who was denied a place at university. Same with grammar schools- very popular right up to the second that it's your child who gets sent to a secondary modern.
But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.
And some of what we're seeing is pining for 1950's / early 1960's society as a fetish for something else. Most of us look back fondly on the decade where we were young adults- irrespective of what wider society was like, for us it was a time of excitement and new possibilities. And a gentle (or not-so-gentle) push against the crusties in the generation above. Not only do we want that time back, anything that deviates from that time is potentially perverted and wrong.
Basically, Douglas Adam's Law of Technology applies to social norms as well;
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. 2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. 3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.
And we look back fondly on the past with the certainty - denied to us of the present - of knowing that it all turned out pretty much ok in the end.
Surely that is "cheating"? The 1950s could easily have ended up in communist victory or nuclear war?
But it didn't, and we are still here. And knowing that it didn't takes away, when we look back wistfully at the 50s, the veneer of angst that those who lived through it (I'm told) experienced. Ditto any other decade and what existential worries we had at the time. That's why everything looks rosier in the past.
To me it is cheating an attempt for a fair comparison.
An equivalent would be seeing the Premier League squads at the start of the 2015-6 and declaring Leicester the winners without playing the matches. Nearly all the time Leicester would not win.
Similarly if we re-ran the world from the 1950s endlessly, very few scenarios would end up similar to how we are now.
I think we're at cross-purposes. Or perhaps even on the same side. My point is that when we look back to another time, we do not do so dispassionately; the glow of nostalgia airbrushes certain elements out, one of which is the angst about how things will turn out. On a more personal level, I often look back nostalgically to the good times in my teens and twenties. Through the lens of nostalgia they were one long party. In reality, my present was fine but I couldn't see a future to look forward to. Now I'm in my forties, the me of my 20s would have been delighted to have the me of my 40s to look forward to being - wife, kids, house, interesting job - and had I known how things would have turned out, I would have been much more able to enjoy being the me of my 20s. And so when I look back at my 20s it is with much more fondness than the experience of being me in my 20s justified.
FPT HYUFD 10:03AM edited 10:07AM OldKingCole said: » show previous quotes Well, I was there, and there was a widespread feeling that we'll all be dead soon in a nuclear war. Girls who got pregnant were thrown out of school and often their families. Homosexuals were imprisoned...... and the police used to hang about places where they were believed to congregate to make some easy arrests. People were executed for crimes they didn't commit.
We were working to make the world better. But then youth often does! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- For social conservatives who take a traditional line on the family there were fewer unmarried mothers in the 1950s, fewer divorces, homosexuality was only practised behind closed doors and abortion was not legal and contraception was not openly available so sex was largely solely within marriage. Immigration was also more tightly controlled. Many support capital punishment today too.
In Truman and Ike and Attlee and Churchill there were also leaders prepared to stand up for the West.
For socialists most of the main industries were nationalised, most industries were heavily unionised and there was a higher top rate of tax, so they also preferred the 1950s too.
The only people who really would have hated the 1950s are liberals and libertarians
As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives. As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel. In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.
I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.
The pill was not available on the NHS until 1967.
The UK had a more socialist economy in the 1950s and more socially conservative laws, that is just fact.
If you are a liberal you may welcome the changes since then, if you are a social conservative you will not and the 1950s were your ideal decade. Of course we had more grammar schools then too.
If you are a socialist you would prefer a pre Thatcher society economically even if you welcome the social liberalism since then and the 1960s or 1970s were more your preferred decade
Thank goodness that 1950s style "social conservativism" is dead and buried.
Treating women as second class citizens, imprisoning people because of their sexuality, people freely abused because of the colour of their skin, people compelled to have unwanted babies because of an absence of birth control or abortion, and people executed for crimes they didn't commit.
Think of that nowadays and you'd think of an impoverished third world nation. Not quite the Taliban but not good by any means.
Good riddance to that and may it never be seen again!
Yes but you are a libertarian not a social conservative, so that just proves my point.
Your preferred era was most likely the 1980s or New Labour era.
There are also plenty of BME social conservatives too (not just the Taliban) who are anti abortion, prefer the traditional family and think there is too much divorce now and want tougher law and order and would prefer more grammar schools as we used to have
Right wing libertarians are generally also social conservatives. They think government should be very very light touch, giving them the right to have as much prejudice as possible without being held to account by the law. I don't think you would find many LGBT or black people in America calling themselves libertarian. Plenty of people who like dressing up in tall white hats and burning crosses (what is that about ffs?) would describe themselves as such.
The UK is not America. Americans use liberal as a synonym for big state socialists too.
They butcher the English language so let's not use their terminologies here.
Sadly I don't have the time to debate at the moment, but I politely suggest that you seem a little confused (and it is your prerogative) over whether you are a liberal conservative or a libertarian. Based on the views you just expressed with respect to social conservatism, I would suggest that if you hold these views you are largely liberal-conservative.
We all hold the views that we hold. They're not even necessarily even internally consistent, they certainly aren't all going to fit into one of five or six bundles of easily-labelled views.
Well said Cookie.
If I was to sum my philosophy up into a single phrase, as opposed to a single word, it is "do as you please, so long as you don't cause harm to others".
My views on fox hunting and gun control fall under the "harm to others" caveat.
@matthiasfromhamburg - thank you for your reply (vanilla won't let me quote you for some reason)
I did wonder about the FPTP seats, but I only went back to 2002 when I saw that their predecessors won two FPTP seats but then didn't get given their PR seats. Now I know why.
So I guess the question is, will Die Linke get three FPTP seats? They got five last time out - one by a very small margin in Leipzig - but the other four in Berlin look fairly solid, though only because of a very split opposition. I wonder if the resurgence of the SPD may be a threat to Die Linke in a couple of those?
And on the overhang seats, I think it's a mad system, but they I guess there aren't concerns about costs.
It is an interesting system i agree, but no more madder than our system of FPTP.
In Scotland and Wales they have a similar system but no overhang seats as the regional seats are "Additional". In Germany, the "second vote" is deemed to be the more important vote for calculations, so the calculated number of seats per party subsumes the first set of seats.
To be clear, it isn't PR that I think is mad - though I don't think it's necessarily better than FPTP - it's the overhang system that I find odd. I think a little bit of a bonus for the bigger parties would be good so as to reduce the need to talk to the smaller parties.
Well, the overhang seats do benefit the bigger parties anyway. It is the "balancing " seat system which is relatively knew. Time was the overhang seats remained alone, thus reducing the proportionality.
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
So much of the feminist movement is focused on comparisons to highly successful men (or statistics skewed by them) and is dismissive of what the vast majority of men experience. If you ever point out that low status men often have enormous struggles and nobody gives a damn about them, you get an arch libertarian "they should pull themselves up by their bootstraps" message that would never be used by progressives for anyone else.
Also the value of male lives is just dismissed. I still find it amazing how many women, who (rightly) insist on equal rights, still believe that women should be prioritized for lifeboats. If that isn't a sign that many men's lives are valued less, I don't know what is. Another example is the repeated examples of Boko Haram capturing boys by the dozen all the time, yet you never get a "bring back our boys" campaign.
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then...
Of course. But not a few of those look back now on what might have been with some degree of regret.
About a third of us when I was studying pharmacy around 1960 were female and I believe that most of them worked for a while after qualifying, then married, had children, then returned to work when the children were older. Same applied to my wife's teacher colleagues. Most of the girls I knew at school wanted a career as well as a family, but they tended to be academic high-fliers. Or at least top stream Grammar school.
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
Indeed, in the 1950s for most women the choice after they left school was to be a nurse, teacher or secretary, certainly if they were middle class maybe a factory or shop worker if they were working class, for a few years then give it up when they married and had children.
They then focused on their family and traditional skills like cooking, housework and needlework, not all were unhappy with that
Not all were unhappy with it. But, by god, a lot of Benzodiazepine was prescribed in the 1960s and 1970s.
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
I'm not actually convinced that men's work of today is necessarily any more rewarding than men's work of the past either. I do a job I'm interested in. I talk to people. I write reports. On a good day, I'll knock up a spreadsheet. It pays me reasonably well. But it's not as satisfying as seeing something built, or from seeing a load of stuff moved from one place to another. The satisfaction of seeing the results of your literal labours. The pleasant ache of the muscles. The victory over nature or over the inanimate object. To be clear, I'm not great at DIY. I've never re-pointed a pathway. It's almost a decade since I even put a shelf up. But still, doing an actual job around the house - not a great deal of thinking involved, but a modicum of skill (only a modicum - I'm bad at this sort of thing) and a bit of physical effort - gives a greater feeling of a job well done. At the weekend I unblocked a drainpipe, and cleared the weeds from the drive. Both were more satisfying than anything I've done at work in months. Both felt like 'proper' work.
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
I don’t know if many people are saying these skills and activities were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of, just that to be forced into them by the then social mores wasn’t great.
Still, two ageing white blokes mulling over what was best for 1950s womanhood must be a metaphor for something.
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
So much of the feminist movement is focused on comparisons to highly successful men (or statistics skewed by them) and is dismissive of what the vast majority of men experience. If you ever point out that low status men often have enormous struggles and nobody gives a damn about them, you get an arch libertarian "they should pull themselves up by their bootstraps" message that would never be used by progressives for anyone else.
Also the value of male lives is just dismissed. I still find it amazing how many women, who (rightly) insist on equal rights, still believe that women should be prioritized for lifeboats. If that isn't a sign that many men's lives are valued less, I don't know what is. Another example is the repeated examples of Boko Haram capturing boys by the dozen all the time, yet you never get a "bring back our boys" campaign.
Indeed. And somehow the disadvantages of being a man in, say, 1916 get completely overlooked.
It's silly to regard the past with modern eyes. Autres temps, autres moeurs
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
Indeed, in the 1950s for most women the choice after they left school was to be a nurse, teacher or secretary, certainly if they were middle class maybe a factory or shop worker if they were working class, for a few years then give it up when they married and had children.
They then focused on their family and traditional skills like cooking, housework and needlework, not all were unhappy with that
Not all were unhappy with it. But, by god, a lot of Benzodiazepine was prescribed in the 1960s and 1970s.
Whereas now mental health issues are at an all time low. Whatever we're doing, it's clearly working...
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
Working mothers now know full well how hard it is to run a household and raise a family and do a paid job. We are not in the slightest bit dismissive of those skills. Needlework and dress-making a la British Sewing Bee are skills but not essential to running a house. Sewing endless buttons and school name tapes on and darning socks is dull. I've done it. Never again, thank God.
What we are dismissive of is the idea that this all we should aspire to or that we should not have the choice of what we should do with our lives.
And, frankly, washing and drying sheets and pillowcases and other laundry and cleaning kitchens and houses etc - without modern gadgets - is drudgery: repetitive, tiring, physically demanding and not frankly very interesting. Try it. I saw my mother do it as a small child. I helped her with it. It is not fun. And it is something which men have been very good at avoiding doing - whether in the 1950's, 1960's or now.
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
I don’t know if many people are saying these skills and activities were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of, just that to be forced into them by the then social mores wasn’t great.
Still, two ageing white blokes mulling over what was best for 1950s womanhood must be a metaphor for something.
Yes, debate. Should all discussion on any subject be curtailed until someone who may have a more informed view be consulted and set the parameter or oversee it?
I don't disagree with your first paragraph, but absolutely anyone should mull over these thingsat any time - if I, you or someone else reveals themselves to have absurd views on something during that so much the better than it being unknown, incapable of someone else making a redoinder.
Brief note: The Unibet odds were correct when this was posted and have shifted to 4/1 in the last few minutes. Just want to stress that the article was correct!
Was an excellent bet at 8/1, I'm surprised you didn't clear them out.
I also caught Hills and Betway napping, it seems no bookie is following this properly. Betway hasn't even limited me to £1.22 yet.
BF Ex was a bit slow a couple of weeks ago but now seems to be on it.
I was limited to £4 with Unibet, so figured I'd leave it to someone else who could actually take advantage. Totally agree though, this is a very simple case of the bookies being caught napping by fast-changing events.
PS: I dream of a day when a minimum staking law is passed in the UK. Not holding my breath.
It's supposed to be some smart way to stem their losses.
But let's start with the fact that, say PP, limit me to the same stakes on politics (mainly winners) and football or cricket (mainly losers).
Then consider that when I put £100 with Betway @ 17/1 - probably matching their total stake received to date - their system took the bet down. Makes sense. Then they put it back up at ... 15/1. No human review clearly.
Wandering off-topic, but I just feel that banning (or essentially banning) winning punters is:
1. Against the spirit of the enterprise; and 2. Encourages a business model of farming addicts and blocking sharps rather than trying to develop a healthy ecosystem of punters where sharps are used to improve the odds for the wider market, like Pinnacle does it.
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
Indeed, in the 1950s for most women the choice after they left school was to be a nurse, teacher or secretary, certainly if they were middle class maybe a factory or shop worker if they were working class, for a few years then give it up when they married and had children.
They then focused on their family and traditional skills like cooking, housework and needlework, not all were unhappy with that
Not all were unhappy with it. But, by god, a lot of Benzodiazepine was prescribed in the 1960s and 1970s.
Whereas now mental health issues are at an all time low. Whatever we're doing, it's clearly working...
Indeed. That was kind of my point - I'm not with the whig view of history either. But now our misery is central heated.
The rose-tinted nostalagia for the 1950s on here (by men) is stunning. It wasn't a bed of roses - it was tough, for the vast majority.
My mother had, and raised, three kids in the 50s (along with four miscarriages). My father worked very long hours for not much money. It was incredibly difficult financially, and really hard work for women. My mother had worked for Rolls Royce in the War; by the 50s, she felt undervalued. Little chance of further or higher education for her generation. She couldn't wait for us kids to grow up so that she could work for a living, partly to better herself and partly so that we could afford stuff. By the 1970s, she'd read Germaine Greer and was a staunch feminist (and a fan of Thatcher). I guess my mother made the mistake of being intelligent and reading widely, which made her question her life of relative drudgery in the 50s.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
Working mothers now know full well how hard it is to run a household and raise a family and do a paid job. We are not in the slightest bit dismissive of those skills. Needlework and dress-making a la British Sewing Bee are skills but not essential to running a house. Sewing endless buttons and school name tapes on and darning socks is dull. I've done it. Never again, thank God.
What we are dismissive of is the idea that this all we should aspire to or that we should not have the choice of what we should do with our lives.
And, frankly, washing and drying sheets and pillowcases and other laundry and cleaning kitchens and houses etc - without modern gadgets - is drudgery: repetitive, tiring, physically demanding and not frankly very interesting. Try it. I saw my mother do it as a small child. I helped her with it. It is not fun. And it is something which men have been very good at avoiding doing - whether in the 1950's, 1960's or now.
Of course that gadgets that lifted women wholesale out of drudgery and changed their lives out of all recognition were invented, developed, manufactured and marketed by men.
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
In the 50's, in the city where I live, the western half did not allow women to drive trams or busses. This caused a problem because the eastern half controlled all the trams and insisted that women are be able to drive trams.
The result was that there were no trams in the west at all for over 40 years.
"The Washington elite have turned on Biden. Watch out for the Harris presidency The media outlets which sold the wars, and sold Biden’s candidacy too, are now whispering that he’s past it DOMINIC GREEN"
Harris would be the first President not to be directly elected to the office since Ford if so.
She might do a slightly better job than Biden but I don't think she is electable in 2024 which would give Trump his chance to return to the Oval Office to get a delayed second term
In which case America is totally f*cked. They'll never get Trump out again except in a pine box once he gets his hands back on levers of law and government.
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
Working mothers now know full well how hard it is to run a household and raise a family and do a paid job. We are not in the slightest bit dismissive of those skills. Needlework and dress-making a la British Sewing Bee are skills but not essential to running a house. Sewing endless buttons and school name tapes on and darning socks is dull. I've done it. Never again, thank God.
What we are dismissive of is the idea that this all we should aspire to or that we should not have the choice of what we should do with our lives.
And, frankly, washing and drying sheets and pillowcases and other laundry and cleaning kitchens and houses etc - without modern gadgets - is drudgery: repetitive, tiring, physically demanding and not frankly very interesting. Try it. I saw my mother do it as a small child. I helped her with it. It is not fun. And it is something which men have been very good at avoiding doing - whether in the 1950's, 1960's or now.
That's a perfect example of my point. Do you not think being an agricultural labourer, or a miner, or a docker, or a milkman, was drudgery, repetitive, tiring, physically demanding and not frankly very interesting?
The rose-tinted nostalagia for the 1950s on here (by men) is stunning. It wasn't a bed of roses - it was tough, for the vast majority.
My mother had, and raised, three kids in the 50s (along with four miscarriages). My father worked very long hours for not much money. It was incredibly difficult financially, and really hard work for women. My mother had worked for Rolls Royce in the War; by the 50s, she felt undervalued. Little chance of further or higher education for her generation. She couldn't wait for us kids to grow up so that she could work for a living, partly to better herself and partly so that we could afford stuff. By the 1970s, she'd read Germaine Greer and was a staunch feminist (and a fan of Thatcher). I guess my mother made the mistake of being intelligent and reading widely, which made her question her life of relative drudgery in the 50s.
That's a hell of a lot to go through, your mum sounds a remarkable woman.
The truth is the past and present is much easier for both sexes if you have money and, particularly for women some biological luck. 'Twas ever thus.
The EU as a whole needs to decide between whether to align itself with the UK, and Putin. And for various reasons, I think it will end up coming to the view that the latter is the better decision. I think this, because the paradigm shift that has emerged with all the woke stuff has never gone very far in the EU: they will ultimately make a bargain with Putin in the same way that it did historically with NATO; it is just a pragmatic question of self interest.
From a pragmatic perspective a Paris-Berlin-Moscow power axis makes a lot of sense. It would be much more an alliance of equals than NATO and provide a credible counterweight to China.
I can't say that I particularly like this idea; but such an axis would ultimately benefit from the UK's involvement too. However, like the beginnings of the EU, it will take many years and anguish before the UK signs up to it.
Relying on kleptocrats for the foundation of international alliances isn't the greatest of ideas. Though apparently there are those in the Tory party who have cultivated Russian connections already.
Which Russian city should Salisbury be twinned with?
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
Working mothers now know full well how hard it is to run a household and raise a family and do a paid job. We are not in the slightest bit dismissive of those skills. Needlework and dress-making a la British Sewing Bee are skills but not essential to running a house. Sewing endless buttons and school name tapes on and darning socks is dull. I've done it. Never again, thank God.
What we are dismissive of is the idea that this all we should aspire to or that we should not have the choice of what we should do with our lives.
And, frankly, washing and drying sheets and pillowcases and other laundry and cleaning kitchens and houses etc - without modern gadgets - is drudgery: repetitive, tiring, physically demanding and not frankly very interesting. Try it. I saw my mother do it as a small child. I helped her with it. It is not fun. And it is something which men have been very good at avoiding doing - whether in the 1950's, 1960's or now.
Hmm. My mother, since there appeared little prospect of getting married...... part of the generation where chap she should have died in Flanders...... qualified as a pharmacist in the late 20's and, after a few years opened her own pharmacy. Since clearly she couldn't run a house , even for a single lady, and a demanding business, her elder sister, also unmarried came to keep house for her. My father, a teacher, arrived on the scene later as, after the appropriate interval did first I and then my sister, but my mother continues to work, initially of course because of the war, but for a long time afterwards because she wanted too. Auntie stayed, too, as housekeeper. I'm sure that my mother had a more fulfilling life than her sister.
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
Working mothers now know full well how hard it is to run a household and raise a family and do a paid job. We are not in the slightest bit dismissive of those skills. Needlework and dress-making a la British Sewing Bee are skills but not essential to running a house. Sewing endless buttons and school name tapes on and darning socks is dull. I've done it. Never again, thank God.
What we are dismissive of is the idea that this all we should aspire to or that we should not have the choice of what we should do with our lives.
And, frankly, washing and drying sheets and pillowcases and other laundry and cleaning kitchens and houses etc - without modern gadgets - is drudgery: repetitive, tiring, physically demanding and not frankly very interesting. Try it. I saw my mother do it as a small child. I helped her with it. It is not fun. And it is something which men have been very good at avoiding doing - whether in the 1950's, 1960's or now.
That's a perfect example of my point. Do you not think being an agricultural labourer, or a miner, or a docker, or a milkman, was drudgery, repetitive, tiring, physically demanding and not frankly very interesting?
Yes, but there is a difference. Men got paid for their drudgery.
"The Washington elite have turned on Biden. Watch out for the Harris presidency The media outlets which sold the wars, and sold Biden’s candidacy too, are now whispering that he’s past it DOMINIC GREEN"
Harris would be the first President not to be directly elected to the office since Ford if so.
She might do a slightly better job than Biden but I don't think she is electable in 2024 which would give Trump his chance to return to the Oval Office to get a delayed second term
In which case America is totally f*cked. They'll never get Trump out again except in a pine box once he gets his hands back on levers of law and government.
The US constitution under the 22nd amendment limits Trump to no more than 2 terms. So even if he won again in 2024 unless 2/3 of both chambers of Congress and 3/4 of state legislatures agreed to change the constitution to let him run for a third term he would have to leave office in 2029.
The US military swears an oath to defend the US constitution
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
I don’t know if many people are saying these skills and activities were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of, just that to be forced into them by the then social mores wasn’t great.
Still, two ageing white blokes mulling over what was best for 1950s womanhood must be a metaphor for something.
Yes, debate. Should all discussion on any subject be curtailed until someone who may have a more informed view be consulted and set the parameter or oversee it?
I don't disagree with your first paragraph, but absolutely anyone should mull over these thingsat any time - if I, you or someone else reveals themselves to have absurd views on something during that so much the better than it being unknown, incapable of someone else making a redoinder.
If you think a VERY mild bit of snark shouldn’t part of debate, I fear for you in the hellpit of the wider internet. The bottom line is afaics neither Nabavi or I feel the slightest bit restrained in expressing an opinion, unless Nabbers is now sobbing into a piece of delicately fashioned embroidery?
As it happens I spent a lot of time with my gran and she’s the reason I can sew on a button and make a bechamel sauce. She was intensely proud of her home making skills but I don’t think it’s a leap into radical feminism to wonder what else she might have been capable of.
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
Working mothers now know full well how hard it is to run a household and raise a family and do a paid job. We are not in the slightest bit dismissive of those skills. Needlework and dress-making a la British Sewing Bee are skills but not essential to running a house. Sewing endless buttons and school name tapes on and darning socks is dull. I've done it. Never again, thank God.
What we are dismissive of is the idea that this all we should aspire to or that we should not have the choice of what we should do with our lives.
And, frankly, washing and drying sheets and pillowcases and other laundry and cleaning kitchens and houses etc - without modern gadgets - is drudgery: repetitive, tiring, physically demanding and not frankly very interesting. Try it. I saw my mother do it as a small child. I helped her with it. It is not fun. And it is something which men have been very good at avoiding doing - whether in the 1950's, 1960's or now.
Worth noting too that the remote relationship with fathers, so common in the Fifties, who took little interest in their children other than taking the boys to football, is something that I am glad to see the back of.
Feminism hasn't just liberated women, it has liberated men too.
The rose-tinted nostalagia for the 1950s on here (by men) is stunning. It wasn't a bed of roses - it was tough, for the vast majority.
My mother had, and raised, three kids in the 50s (along with four miscarriages). My father worked very long hours for not much money. It was incredibly difficult financially, and really hard work for women. My mother had worked for Rolls Royce in the War; by the 50s, she felt undervalued. Little chance of further or higher education for her generation. She couldn't wait for us kids to grow up so that she could work for a living, partly to better herself and partly so that we could afford stuff. By the 1970s, she'd read Germaine Greer and was a staunch feminist (and a fan of Thatcher). I guess my mother made the mistake of being intelligent and reading widely, which made her question her life of relative drudgery in the 50s.
That's a hell of a lot to go through, your mum sounds a remarkable woman.
Thanks. I didn't mean what I wrote to sound in any way as a tribute to my mum, though. She would have argued strongly that her life was pretty much in line with the norm in the 1950s, and standards of living, health care etc. only really started improving in the 1960s.
It was in the 1950s that the man who probably made a bigger contribution to our WW11 victory than any other, Alan Turing, accepted chemical castration to avoid prison for homosexual acts.
A couple of years later he was dead from cyanide poisoning.
That was the 1950s and thank goodness it has gone.
Democrats will probably lose the House. They may well lose the Senate. This might be the last Democratic “trifecta” for another 10 years or more, given partisan gerrymandering in one chamber and the Republican Party’s structural advantage in the other. The best play, then, is to go all out
It was in the 1950s that the man who probably made a bigger contribution to our WW11 victory than any other, Alan Turing, accepted chemical castration to avoid prison for homosexual acts.
A couple of years later he was dead from cyanide poisoning.
That was the 1950s and thank goodness it has gone.
It's 50 50 whether it was suicide or accident, mind.
I haven't read all the thread but we haven't really got people pinning for the 50s have we? And if we have did they live in that era.
I don't remember the 50s as I was 6 when we entered the 60s, but for me:
Outside loo only until 1963 Bathed in a tin bath in front of fire until 1963 No central heating until later in the 60s No phone until later in the 60s and then a party line Nobody was gay (or was it they couldn't admit it I wonder?) Don't be black Don't get pregnant out of wedlock Life expectancy after retirement at 65 was negligible and pointless If you went to a Secondary school then unless you were very lucky, tough, no matter how bright you were Similarly getting into University. I managed it in 73, but I never met anyone else from a Secondary school that did, but I knew many who were capable and much better than those that did.
I haven't read all the thread but we haven't really got people pinning for the 50s have we? And if we have did they live in that era.
I don't remember the 50s as I was 6 when we entered the 60s, but for me:
Outside loo only until 1963 Bathed in a tin bath in front of fire until 1963 No central heating until later in the 60s No phone until later in the 60s and then a party line Nobody was gay (or was it they couldn't admit it I wonder?) Don't be black Don't get pregnant out of wedlock Life expectancy after retirement at 65 was negligible and pointless If you went to a Secondary school then unless you were very lucky, tough, no matter how bright you were Similarly getting into University. I managed it in 73, but I never met anyone else from a Secondary school that did, but I knew many who were capable and much better than those that did.
Who the hell wants to go back to those values?
Those who are anti abortion, anti gay marriage, preferred the traditional family and family meals every night with the wife doing the housework while the husband went to work, anti easy divorce, want tighter immigration controls, are anti too many universities, want more grammar schools and more police on the beat and capital punishment back would gladly go back to the 1950s.
Indeed many of the above who most likely voted UKIP and Leave preferred the 1950s to now
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
Working mothers now know full well how hard it is to run a household and raise a family and do a paid job. We are not in the slightest bit dismissive of those skills. Needlework and dress-making a la British Sewing Bee are skills but not essential to running a house. Sewing endless buttons and school name tapes on and darning socks is dull. I've done it. Never again, thank God.
What we are dismissive of is the idea that this all we should aspire to or that we should not have the choice of what we should do with our lives.
And, frankly, washing and drying sheets and pillowcases and other laundry and cleaning kitchens and houses etc - without modern gadgets - is drudgery: repetitive, tiring, physically demanding and not frankly very interesting. Try it. I saw my mother do it as a small child. I helped her with it. It is not fun. And it is something which men have been very good at avoiding doing - whether in the 1950's, 1960's or now.
Of course that gadgets that lifted women wholesale out of drudgery and changed their lives out of all recognition were invented, developed, manufactured and marketed by men.
Not feminists.
And?
Men invented them for profit, and other men bought them to get better value for money out of their womenfolk. If we are refighting a 1950s gender war, I don't think that was a winning move on your part.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
FPT HYUFD 10:03AM edited 10:07AM OldKingCole said: » show previous quotes Well, I was there, and there was a widespread feeling that we'll all be dead soon in a nuclear war. Girls who got pregnant were thrown out of school and often their families. Homosexuals were imprisoned...... and the police used to hang about places where they were believed to congregate to make some easy arrests. People were executed for crimes they didn't commit.
We were working to make the world better. But then youth often does! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- For social conservatives who take a traditional line on the family there were fewer unmarried mothers in the 1950s, fewer divorces, homosexuality was only practised behind closed doors and abortion was not legal and contraception was not openly available so sex was largely solely within marriage. Immigration was also more tightly controlled. Many support capital punishment today too.
In Truman and Ike and Attlee and Churchill there were also leaders prepared to stand up for the West.
For socialists most of the main industries were nationalised, most industries were heavily unionised and there was a higher top rate of tax, so they also preferred the 1950s too.
The only people who really would have hated the 1950s are liberals and libertarians
As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives. As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel. In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.
I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.
The pill was not available on the NHS until 1967.
The UK had a more socialist economy in the 1950s and more socially conservative laws, that is just fact.
If you are a liberal you may welcome the changes since then, if you are a social conservative you will not and the 1950s were your ideal decade. Of course we had more grammar schools then too.
If you are a socialist you would prefer a pre Thatcher society economically even if you welcome the social liberalism since then and the 1960s or 1970s were more your preferred decade
Thank goodness that 1950s style "social conservativism" is dead and buried.
Treating women as second class citizens, imprisoning people because of their sexuality, people freely abused because of the colour of their skin, people compelled to have unwanted babies because of an absence of birth control or abortion, and people executed for crimes they didn't commit.
Think of that nowadays and you'd think of an impoverished third world nation. Not quite the Taliban but not good by any means.
Good riddance to that and may it never be seen again!
Yes but you are a libertarian not a social conservative, so that just proves my point.
Your preferred era was most likely the 1980s or New Labour era.
There are also plenty of BME social conservatives too (not just the Taliban) who are anti abortion, prefer the traditional family and think there is too much divorce now and want tougher law and order and would prefer more grammar schools as we used to have
Right wing libertarians are generally also social conservatives. They think government should be very very light touch, giving them the right to have as much prejudice as possible without being held to account by the law. I don't think you would find many LGBT or black people in America calling themselves libertarian. Plenty of people who like dressing up in tall white hats and burning crosses (what is that about ffs?) would describe themselves as such.
The UK is not America. Americans use liberal as a synonym for big state socialists too.
They butcher the English language so let's not use their terminologies here.
Sadly I don't have the time to debate at the moment, but I politely suggest that you seem a little confused (and it is your prerogative) over whether you are a liberal conservative or a libertarian. Based on the views you just expressed with respect to social conservatism, I would suggest that if you hold these views you are largely liberal-conservative.
We all hold the views that we hold. They're not even necessarily even internally consistent, they certainly aren't all going to fit into one of five or six bundles of easily-labelled views.
Well said Cookie.
If I was to sum my philosophy up into a single phrase, as opposed to a single word, it is "do as you please, so long as you don't cause harm to others".
My views on fox hunting and gun control fall under the "harm to others" caveat.
It's interesting as I would agree with your single phrase philosophy, yet find myself social liberal and economically centrist - leaning centre left.
I think a lot of the disagreement within liberal circles comes down to "clash of rights", which is far more prominent in the economic sphere. To take a few examples, many activities have externalities, which poses the question of how to manage them. Unchecked capitalism results in monopoly power, harming consumers and employees. And all children's opportunities in life shouldn't be severely limited through no fault of their own, requiring some form of safety net of families.
I can see how liberalism can reasonably guide you to different conclusions once you start to consider more complex issues, rather than something as simple as capital punishment or equal rights.
For me economic centrism isn't maintaining the status quo (i.e. which equates to conservatism), but rather accepting good ideas from both right and left philosophies. From the left, let's tax wealth. From the right, let's not consider the NHS a sacred cow and consider the merits of healthcare systems from continental Europe. However, I recognise this approach ends up alienating almost everyone in some shape or form!
Okay, time to don my flameproof suit and dive headlong into this topic ...
Personally, I want feminism to disappear because it has become irrelevant - in the same way it would be good if race became irrelevant. Any role should be open to anyone who can do it, regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, age, etc. And roles should be defined for characteristics the role requires, not to close out certain categories of people. What works for a man, woman, couple or family should be of no interest to the rest of us.
Until that time, feminism can perform a useful role in heading towards that goal - as long as the movement does not destroy itself in an orgy of stupid internal arguments.
As an aside, a nasty trend I've seen amongst online feminists is 'shaming' women who freely choose to chuck in their jobs to look after their kids. How dare they betray the cause by going back to old-fashioned roles?
On topic: Some things worth knowing if you are going to bet on the German federal elections.
The next chancellor could be different to the party with the most seats. The most likely scenarios are if CDU/CSU+FDP > SPD+Green+Linke then Amin Laschet, if SPD+Green> CDU/CSU+FDP then either Scholz (SPD) or Baerbock (Green) depending on who gets the higher vote share.
It will get messy if AFD has more than 10% (like in 2017) or if the Linke tip the balance between the two sides. The SDP at federal level really do not want to form a coalition with Die Linke, despite having worked together well at stare level in Berlin and Thuringen. Another spanner in the works for a next chancellor market is if CDU/CSU form some kind of coalition government, but Laschet has performed badly in the campaign. Then Soeder (CSU) could still take over as chancellor. For me the most likely route to this is if the only AFD free route to a government is a Grand Coalition again, but where CDU/CSU have barely more votes than the SPD.
Moving to the distribution of Bundestag seats: The polls in the last week are very accurate to the final result, usually within 1 percetage-point. The reason is the top-up PR system, the main article imlplies that there is a full PR system, but like in Scotland, there are 299 directly elected contituency MPs ("first vote") and the rest are assigned so that the "second vote" matches the total MP distribution.
Having said that there are some catches. The 5% hurdle means that parties who do not get 5% in the national "second vote" are not assigned proportional seats in the Bundestag. This happened to the FDP in 2013 and might happen to Die Linke this time. This means that the partys making it to the bundestag will get a higher seat share compared to vote share.
Another thing to be aware of is that the complicated assignemt system of the proportinal "second vote seats" has been changed and the Greens, FDP and Die Linke don't like the changes, as it benefits parties who get more "first vote" seats. This could mean that they get less than their fair second vote share. There has already been an unsucessful challenge to the new system, and there could be a challenge that this is unconstitutional after the election. This might have an effect on when the bookies pay out.
On a personal level this is the first time I am allowed to vote in the federal election and am looking forward to a exciting election result.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
If the SPD does win, it is an open question as to what kind of coalition they would lead. It may be Red/Green, or it could also be a "traffic light" with the FPD. These would both be quite a departure, but Red/Green would be more redical and less predictable than a traffic light coalition. If the CDU are indeed below 30% then it is hard to see that the Jamaica coalition (Black CDU, Gold FDP and Greens) is viable.
So in any event the exit of the CDU from the government would be a real shift and open up some real questions for the EU and NATO. After all former SPD leader Schroder, as chairman of Nordstream, has been a major advocate of a deal with Putin. If the SPD follows Schroder´s advice then France under Macron will be utterly horrified and there could be major EU ructions and some serious noise from the Eastern EU members too.
After the Kabul fiasco this could really mean that NATO is on its last legs... I sense very dangerous times ahead.
If it does come to something like that then I think France will ultimately prefer to swallow its pride and align with the Anglosphere rather than be dominated by Germany and Russia.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I think you had to invent a decent breathalyser before you could impose limits. Prior to that they made you try to walk a straight line.
"The Washington elite have turned on Biden. Watch out for the Harris presidency The media outlets which sold the wars, and sold Biden’s candidacy too, are now whispering that he’s past it DOMINIC GREEN"
Harris would be the first President not to be directly elected to the office since Ford if so.
She might do a slightly better job than Biden but I don't think she is electable in 2024 which would give Trump his chance to return to the Oval Office to get a delayed second term
In which case America is totally f*cked. They'll never get Trump out again except in a pine box once he gets his hands back on levers of law and government.
The US constitution under the 22nd amendment limits Trump to no more than 2 terms. So even if he won again in 2024 unless 2/3 of both chambers of Congress and 3/4 of state legislatures agreed to change the constitution to let him run for a third term he would have to leave office in 2029.
The US military swears an oath to defend the US constitution
I think he would have a jolly good go at president for life
Brief note: The Unibet odds were correct when this was posted and have shifted to 4/1 in the last few minutes. Just want to stress that the article was correct!
Was an excellent bet at 8/1, I'm surprised you didn't clear them out.
I also caught Hills and Betway napping, it seems no bookie is following this properly. Betway hasn't even limited me to £1.22 yet.
BF Ex was a bit slow a couple of weeks ago but now seems to be on it.
I was limited to £4 with Unibet, so figured I'd leave it to someone else who could actually take advantage. Totally agree though, this is a very simple case of the bookies being caught napping by fast-changing events.
PS: I dream of a day when a minimum staking law is passed in the UK. Not holding my breath.
It's supposed to be some smart way to stem their losses.
But let's start with the fact that, say PP, limit me to the same stakes on politics (mainly winners) and football or cricket (mainly losers).
Then consider that when I put £100 with Betway @ 17/1 - probably matching their total stake received to date - their system took the bet down. Makes sense. Then they put it back up at ... 15/1. No human review clearly.
Wandering off-topic, but I just feel that banning (or essentially banning) winning punters is:
1. Against the spirit of the enterprise; and 2. Encourages a business model of farming addicts and blocking sharps rather than trying to develop a healthy ecosystem of punters where sharps are used to improve the odds for the wider market, like Pinnacle does it.
If you have to allow winning punters... then that means you need more losing punters to make the same profit. I.e. you need more problem addicts?
It seems perfectly reasonable to me that bookies can refuse bets from people they normally lose to.
I would say that if bookies can't set their odds in a way to be profitable from recreational punters without farming addicts then they simply don't have a moral justification for operating. And being able to ban winners just encourages them not to bother doing the odds properly.
I also think it is particularly galling given their marketing! If bookies want to ban everyone who does well then their adverts should reflect that, rather than showing happy winners who in reality they do not permit.
Do some data privacy rules now allow you to ask a bookmaker to delete all your details if you close an account with them? if so could you then reopen an account with them having no knowledge of your past success?
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
I'm not actually convinced that men's work of today is necessarily any more rewarding than men's work of the past either. I do a job I'm interested in. I talk to people. I write reports. On a good day, I'll knock up a spreadsheet. It pays me reasonably well. But it's not as satisfying as seeing something built, or from seeing a load of stuff moved from one place to another. The satisfaction of seeing the results of your literal labours. The pleasant ache of the muscles. The victory over nature or over the inanimate object. To be clear, I'm not great at DIY. I've never re-pointed a pathway. It's almost a decade since I even put a shelf up. But still, doing an actual job around the house - not a great deal of thinking involved, but a modicum of skill (only a modicum - I'm bad at this sort of thing) and a bit of physical effort - gives a greater feeling of a job well done. At the weekend I unblocked a drainpipe, and cleared the weeds from the drive. Both were more satisfying than anything I've done at work in months. Both felt like 'proper' work.
Didn't Churchill say he was happiest when bricklaying?
I can totally understand that: the agreeable, slightly mindless rhythm of the work, a break for lunch, more hard but meaningful labour, a good appetite at the end which needs a big tasty dinner. Plus you can eventually say: Look, I built that wall
I'm very lucky that I love my creative work, which brings emotional and intellectual satisfaction, even if sometimes it is fiendishly hard or frustrating. But if it was easy it would not be satisfying
I cannot imagine doing a job that I disliked, or a job that bored me. I'd go mad
If the SPD does win, it is an open question as to what kind of coalition they would lead. It may be Red/Green, or it could also be a "traffic light" with the FPD. These would both be quite a departure, but Red/Green would be more redical and less predictable than a traffic light coalition. If the CDU are indeed below 30% then it is hard to see that the Jamaica coalition (Black CDU, Gold FDP and Greens) is viable.
So in any event the exit of the CDU from the government would be a real shift and open up some real questions for the EU and NATO. After all former SPD leader Schroder, as chairman of Nordstream, has been a major advocate of a deal with Putin. If the SPD follows Schroder´s advice then France under Macron will be utterly horrified and there could be major EU ructions and some serious noise from the Eastern EU members too.
After the Kabul fiasco this could really mean that NATO is on its last legs... I sense very dangerous times ahead.
If it does come to something like that then I think France will ultimately prefer to swallow its pride and align with the Anglosphere rather than be dominated by Germany and Russia.
Yes, the problem with some "EU axis with Putin" is that many members would be utterly horrified. What might make sense in Berlin would be bitterly rejected in Warsaw and Budapest, the Baltic states, and so on
The UK needs to align with Canada Oz and NZ of course. Hook up with France for some operations. And maybe remarry America if it returns to good sense
"The Washington elite have turned on Biden. Watch out for the Harris presidency The media outlets which sold the wars, and sold Biden’s candidacy too, are now whispering that he’s past it DOMINIC GREEN"
Harris would be the first President not to be directly elected to the office since Ford if so.
She might do a slightly better job than Biden but I don't think she is electable in 2024 which would give Trump his chance to return to the Oval Office to get a delayed second term
In which case America is totally f*cked. They'll never get Trump out again except in a pine box once he gets his hands back on levers of law and government.
The US constitution under the 22nd amendment limits Trump to no more than 2 terms. So even if he won again in 2024 unless 2/3 of both chambers of Congress and 3/4 of state legislatures agreed to change the constitution to let him run for a third term he would have to leave office in 2029.
The US military swears an oath to defend the US constitution
I think he would have a jolly good go at president for life
He would need the military to do it.
They swear an oath to support and defend the US constitution but also to obey the orders of the US President so would be conflicted if he won in 2024 and tried to run for a third term in 2028 and refused to leave office.
Though as he would likely not be put on the ballot in most states and assuming the Congress did not object to the winner of the EC becoming the next President the constitution would likely still win out as their oath would then apply to the newly inaugrated President from 2029
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
I'm not actually convinced that men's work of today is necessarily any more rewarding than men's work of the past either. I do a job I'm interested in. I talk to people. I write reports. On a good day, I'll knock up a spreadsheet. It pays me reasonably well. But it's not as satisfying as seeing something built, or from seeing a load of stuff moved from one place to another. The satisfaction of seeing the results of your literal labours. The pleasant ache of the muscles. The victory over nature or over the inanimate object. To be clear, I'm not great at DIY. I've never re-pointed a pathway. It's almost a decade since I even put a shelf up. But still, doing an actual job around the house - not a great deal of thinking involved, but a modicum of skill (only a modicum - I'm bad at this sort of thing) and a bit of physical effort - gives a greater feeling of a job well done. At the weekend I unblocked a drainpipe, and cleared the weeds from the drive. Both were more satisfying than anything I've done at work in months. Both felt like 'proper' work.
Didn't Churchill say he was happiest when bricklaying?
I can totally understand that: the agreeable, slightly mindless rhythm of the work, a break for lunch, more hard but meaningful labour, a good appetite at the end which needs a big tasty dinner. Plus you can eventually say: Look, I built that wall
I'm very lucky that I love my creative work, which brings emotional and intellectual satisfaction, even if sometimes it is fiendishly hard or frustrating. But if it was easy it would not be satisfying
I cannot imagine doing a job that I disliked, or a job that bored me. I'd go mad
Indeed - and I've also just come across Kipling's advice for melancholy, which was to dig - not necessarily with any particular purpose. Which I can also recommend. One of my favourite inducers of happiness is to dragoon the daughters down to a beach with a decent stream on it and set about some major work of aquatic diversion. The daughters are there for company and also to provide an excuse, but if they drift off to other activities I am very happy to continue for as long as I am allowed to. Utterly purposeless - who cares how the water gets to the sea, especially as whatever I create will be washed away by the tide - but utterly compelling and I leave with a great sense of happiness and satisfaction and, ideally, physical tiredness.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
Working mothers now know full well how hard it is to run a household and raise a family and do a paid job. We are not in the slightest bit dismissive of those skills. Needlework and dress-making a la British Sewing Bee are skills but not essential to running a house. Sewing endless buttons and school name tapes on and darning socks is dull. I've done it. Never again, thank God.
What we are dismissive of is the idea that this all we should aspire to or that we should not have the choice of what we should do with our lives.
And, frankly, washing and drying sheets and pillowcases and other laundry and cleaning kitchens and houses etc - without modern gadgets - is drudgery: repetitive, tiring, physically demanding and not frankly very interesting. Try it. I saw my mother do it as a small child. I helped her with it. It is not fun. And it is something which men have been very good at avoiding doing - whether in the 1950's, 1960's or now.
I cleaned the bathroom yesterday while my wife was at work. nothing was said in the evening. this morning she asks "did you clean the bathroom yesterday?". " might have" i replied. "you forgot to dust this".
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
I briefly worked at British Steel in the late 90s. Had a tour of a blast furnace. We were introduced to a character in overalls and a full face visor who, on turning up the visor to talk to us, turned out to be quite an attractive young blonde woman. It was like taking part in a scene designed to confound stereotypes. Even in the 90s, though, she was highly atypical.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
[snip] But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.[snip]
I'm not at all convinced that the 'less so if you were a woman' bit is correct. Although it's a common view nowadays, it seems to me to be based on a huge logical fallacy, namely that the women of the 1950s thought in the same way and had the same aspirations as the women of today. Yes, if a woman wanted a high-flying career or to be a bus driver, the 1950s wasn't great. But in general, they viewed the world differently then.
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
I'm not actually convinced that men's work of today is necessarily any more rewarding than men's work of the past either. I do a job I'm interested in. I talk to people. I write reports. On a good day, I'll knock up a spreadsheet. It pays me reasonably well. But it's not as satisfying as seeing something built, or from seeing a load of stuff moved from one place to another. The satisfaction of seeing the results of your literal labours. The pleasant ache of the muscles. The victory over nature or over the inanimate object. To be clear, I'm not great at DIY. I've never re-pointed a pathway. It's almost a decade since I even put a shelf up. But still, doing an actual job around the house - not a great deal of thinking involved, but a modicum of skill (only a modicum - I'm bad at this sort of thing) and a bit of physical effort - gives a greater feeling of a job well done. At the weekend I unblocked a drainpipe, and cleared the weeds from the drive. Both were more satisfying than anything I've done at work in months. Both felt like 'proper' work.
Didn't Churchill say he was happiest when bricklaying?
I can totally understand that: the agreeable, slightly mindless rhythm of the work, a break for lunch, more hard but meaningful labour, a good appetite at the end which needs a big tasty dinner. Plus you can eventually say: Look, I built that wall
I'm very lucky that I love my creative work, which brings emotional and intellectual satisfaction, even if sometimes it is fiendishly hard or frustrating. But if it was easy it would not be satisfying
I cannot imagine doing a job that I disliked, or a job that bored me. I'd go mad
Indeed - and I've also just come across Kipling's advice for melancholy, which was to dig - not necessarily with any particular purpose. Which I can also recommend. One of my favourite inducers of happiness is to dragoon the daughters down to a beach with a decent stream on it and set about some major work of aquatic diversion. The daughters are there for company and also to provide an excuse, but if they drift off to other activities I am very happy to continue for as long as I am allowed to. Utterly purposeless - who cares how the water gets to the sea, especially as whatever I create will be washed away by the tide - but utterly compelling and I leave with a great sense of happiness and satisfaction and, ideally, physical tiredness.
Hah. I'm very similar
I love to go for long country walks and then be confronted by a small river in the woods, apparently barring my way. I will spend a happy hour building a small bridge with logs, or lugging rocks to make a ford, and then I will cross, with intense satisfaction. Much more satisfying than looking on a map and just taking a different route
It must be instinctive. Something about exploring and pioneering. The hunter gatherer beating a new path and building a new nest?
Also, of course, the endorphins from physical activity can be extremely stimulating
I recently discovered HIIT - High Intensity Interval Training - just 30 minutes of work-out, but super tough. You can do it without any equipment.
The euphoria at the end is mind-blowing, I will start singing loudly to myself. But don't do it every day. You can do yourself a nasty injury, I did. Three times a week is easily enough, do more gentle exercise the rest of the week....
If the SPD does win, it is an open question as to what kind of coalition they would lead. It may be Red/Green, or it could also be a "traffic light" with the FPD. These would both be quite a departure, but Red/Green would be more redical and less predictable than a traffic light coalition. If the CDU are indeed below 30% then it is hard to see that the Jamaica coalition (Black CDU, Gold FDP and Greens) is viable.
So in any event the exit of the CDU from the government would be a real shift and open up some real questions for the EU and NATO. After all former SPD leader Schroder, as chairman of Nordstream, has been a major advocate of a deal with Putin. If the SPD follows Schroder´s advice then France under Macron will be utterly horrified and there could be major EU ructions and some serious noise from the Eastern EU members too.
After the Kabul fiasco this could really mean that NATO is on its last legs... I sense very dangerous times ahead.
This seems like off the radar scare-mongering to me. Merkel is relatively pro-Putin, and they have a good rapport for politicians with quite different policies. Merkel talking directly with Putin in Russian has certainly helped.
On the other side the SPD and Greens are both very strongly pro European parties. The only spanner in the works is if there is a Red-Red-Green coalition (ie including Die Linke). I'm sure that if that happens, the SPD will keep Die Linke as far away from defence and foreign policy as possible.
I briefly worked at British Steel in the late 90s. Had a tour of a blast furnace. We were introduced to a character in overalls and a full face visor who, on turning up the visor to talk to us, turned out to be quite an attractive young blonde woman. It was like taking part in a scene designed to confound stereotypes. Even in the 90s, though, she was highly atypical.
Scotland Covid cases hit a new reporting day peak of 4,323.
Sturgeon refuses to rule out reintroducing some restrictions if necessary.
Could be tricky for the politicians. Given what's happening in Australia, it's hard to imagine anything other than a fairly severe lockdown making much difference.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
My late stepmum had a story about sitting in a doctor's waiting room, with an older couple who were discussing the posters on the wall (the ones that give you good advice about smoking and sex etc)
The woman looked at the poster about booze intake which said "the advised limit is 28 units" and the woman remarked, "Well, that's not so bad, that's roughly what I drink" and then her husband said "no, darling, the limit is 28 units a week, not a day"
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
56 units a week I think means you can drink 8 pints a night if you take 2 days a week off.
I'm no expert, but reading that thread it sounds like Laschet is to CDU/CSU what Corbyn was to Labour.
Laschet is actually pretty centrist and ideologically close to Merkel, just uncharismatic and hapless. Plus don't forget Corbyn actually did pretty well on a populist platform in 2017 even if not in 2019.
If the SPD do win most seats and form a government with the Greens and FDP or Linke expect the Union to shift to the right in opposition and dump Laschet and Merkelism
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
When people read that medieval peasants drank nothing but beer (because it was safer than water) and therefore they must have been pissed all day, they forget that the beer was seriously weak. Literally: "small beer" or "small ale". The alcohol content could be as low as 1%, or less
By contrast, beers and wines are all getting stronger, these last decades. Especially red wines
Scotland Covid cases hit a new reporting day peak of 4,323.
Sturgeon refuses to rule out reintroducing some restrictions if necessary.
Could be tricky for the politicians. Given what's happening in Australia, it's hard to imagine anything other than a fairly severe lockdown making much difference.
This is quite depressing. It suggests that the return of schools will mean another wave, and then another lockdown. So this is coming to south Britain, too?
It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service. Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
I wonder how many, now elderly, German ladies, who came over here as soldier's brides in the 50's actually, formally, took British citizenship? And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
I know someone whose dad came over on the Windrush's first immigration voyage - and also someone else who was on it when it caught fire and sank somewhere near Egypt (not sure if Med or Red Sea).
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
My father grew up in South Africa and first came to the UK in the late 50s at age 21 to fulfil his National Service obligation. On the first day out of Cape Town the Australian with whom he was sharing a cabin went 'boat happy' and threw all of my dad's luggage out of a convenient porthole. The 50s were fucked.
My father remembers people habitually drinking and driving from pub to pub in the 1950s. OK there were far fewer cars and they were less powerful but even so.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
I can remember people saying "one over the eight" - which meant you had drunk more than eight pints of beer, and therefore you'd reached a stage where you probably should not drive
EIGHT PINTS
I believe that when weekly recommended alcohol unit consumption limits were initially introduced, the 'safe' bar was initially set at....er.......56 units.
Sounds about right. Simon Hoggart suggested that the units in question are measures of volume, based on one kitchen unit.
Maybe the authorities relied on the quality of the alcohol to limit intake. Let's face it, much of it was shite. All those Party Sevens, Double Diamond, Worthington E, Watneys Red Barrel, Blue Nun, Black Tower etc.
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
56 units a week I think means you can drink 8 pints a night if you take 2 days a week off.
Only if the beer is weak. A pint of 5% is 3 units.
Comments
That's why everything looks rosier in the past.
In Scotland and Wales they have a similar system but no overhang seats as the regional seats are "Additional". In Germany, the "second vote" is deemed to be the more important vote for calculations, so the calculated number of seats per party subsumes the first set of seats.
I.e. you need more problem addicts?
It seems perfectly reasonable to me that bookies can refuse bets from people they normally lose to.
An equivalent would be seeing the Premier League squads at the start of the 2015-6 and declaring Leicester the winners without playing the matches. Nearly all the time Leicester would not win.
Similarly if we re-ran the world from the 1950s endlessly, very few scenarios would end up similar to how we are now.
And how many of them haven't formalised their position post 2020?
Though apparently there are those in the Tory party who have cultivated Russian connections already.
I also think it is particularly galling given their marketing! If bookies want to ban everyone who does well then their adverts should reflect that, rather than showing happy winners who in reality they do not permit.
She might do a slightly better job than Biden but I don't think she is electable in 2024 which would give Trump his chance to return to the Oval Office to get a delayed second term
The other related point, which always surprises me, is how much women today are dismissive of the skills and achievements of women from ages past. Somehow the idea has taken root that that skills such as needlework, or dress making, or running a household without modern gadgets, were trivial drudgery and nothing to be proud of. Implicit in this also is the assumption that 'men's work' of the time was somehow more fulfilling and challenging, which (for most men throughout most of history) has not been the case.
If Europe decides the America relationship is dead (I don't go along with this, but stick with it for the argument), I would say Russia is a bigger strategic threat to Europe than China and if anything they would be better going with an agreement of some kind with China.
They then focused on their family and traditional skills like cooking, housework and needlework, not all were unhappy with that
"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife.."
I wonder how long it takes our friend and his new wife to decide who is going to do the washing up? Or similar?
But not a few of those look back now on what might have been with some degree of regret.
Though his axioms occasionally leave something to be desired.
On a more personal level, I often look back nostalgically to the good times in my teens and twenties. Through the lens of nostalgia they were one long party. In reality, my present was fine but I couldn't see a future to look forward to. Now I'm in my forties, the me of my 20s would have been delighted to have the me of my 40s to look forward to being - wife, kids, house, interesting job - and had I known how things would have turned out, I would have been much more able to enjoy being the me of my 20s. And so when I look back at my 20s it is with much more fondness than the experience of being me in my 20s justified.
If I was to sum my philosophy up into a single phrase, as opposed to a single word, it is "do as you please, so long as you don't cause harm to others".
My views on fox hunting and gun control fall under the "harm to others" caveat.
Also the value of male lives is just dismissed. I still find it amazing how many women, who (rightly) insist on equal rights, still believe that women should be prioritized for lifeboats. If that isn't a sign that many men's lives are valued less, I don't know what is. Another example is the repeated examples of Boko Haram capturing boys by the dozen all the time, yet you never get a "bring back our boys" campaign.
Most of the girls I knew at school wanted a career as well as a family, but they tended to be academic high-fliers. Or at least top stream Grammar school.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS37SNYjg8w
I do a job I'm interested in. I talk to people. I write reports. On a good day, I'll knock up a spreadsheet. It pays me reasonably well.
But it's not as satisfying as seeing something built, or from seeing a load of stuff moved from one place to another. The satisfaction of seeing the results of your literal labours. The pleasant ache of the muscles. The victory over nature or over the inanimate object.
To be clear, I'm not great at DIY. I've never re-pointed a pathway. It's almost a decade since I even put a shelf up. But still, doing an actual job around the house - not a great deal of thinking involved, but a modicum of skill (only a modicum - I'm bad at this sort of thing) and a bit of physical effort - gives a greater feeling of a job well done.
At the weekend I unblocked a drainpipe, and cleared the weeds from the drive. Both were more satisfying than anything I've done at work in months. Both felt like 'proper' work.
Still, two ageing white blokes mulling over what was best for 1950s womanhood must be a metaphor for something.
It's silly to regard the past with modern eyes. Autres temps, autres moeurs
What we are dismissive of is the idea that this all we should aspire to or that we should not have the choice of what we should do with our lives.
And, frankly, washing and drying sheets and pillowcases and other laundry and cleaning kitchens and houses etc - without modern gadgets - is drudgery: repetitive, tiring, physically demanding and not frankly very interesting. Try it. I saw my mother do it as a small child. I helped her with it. It is not fun. And it is something which men have been very good at avoiding doing - whether in the 1950's, 1960's or now.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/aug/23/green-party-steps-into-unknown-with-latest-leadership-election
I don't disagree with your first paragraph, but absolutely anyone should mull over these thingsat any time - if I, you or someone else reveals themselves to have absurd views on something during that so much the better than it being unknown, incapable of someone else making a redoinder.
http://aboutasfarasdelgados.blogspot.com/2014/08/luis-louis-ladbrokes-life.html
http://aboutasfarasdelgados.blogspot.com/2014/08/you-dont-have-to-be-hypocritical-coward.html
My mother had, and raised, three kids in the 50s (along with four miscarriages). My father worked very long hours for not much money. It was incredibly difficult financially, and really hard work for women. My mother had worked for Rolls Royce in the War; by the 50s, she felt undervalued. Little chance of further or higher education for her generation. She couldn't wait for us kids to grow up so that she could work for a living, partly to better herself and partly so that we could afford stuff. By the 1970s, she'd read Germaine Greer and was a staunch feminist (and a fan of Thatcher). I guess my mother made the mistake of being intelligent and reading widely, which made her question her life of relative drudgery in the 50s.
I looked up the passenger manifest for that first Windies trip. It lists the passengers, quite clearly, as 'British' ...
Not feminists.
The result was that there were no trams in the west at all for over 40 years.
The truth is the past and present is much easier for both sexes if you have money and, particularly for women some biological luck. 'Twas ever thus.
My mother, since there appeared little prospect of getting married...... part of the generation where chap she should have died in Flanders...... qualified as a pharmacist in the late 20's and, after a few years opened her own pharmacy. Since clearly she couldn't run a house , even for a single lady, and a demanding business, her elder sister, also unmarried came to keep house for her.
My father, a teacher, arrived on the scene later as, after the appropriate interval did first I and then my sister, but my mother continues to work, initially of course because of the war, but for a long time afterwards because she wanted too. Auntie stayed, too, as housekeeper.
I'm sure that my mother had a more fulfilling life than her sister.
The US military swears an oath to defend the US constitution
As it happens I spent a lot of time with my gran and she’s the reason I can sew on a button and make a bechamel sauce. She was intensely proud of her home making skills but I don’t think it’s a leap into radical feminism to wonder what else she might have been capable of.
Feminism hasn't just liberated women, it has liberated men too.
A couple of years later he was dead from cyanide poisoning.
That was the 1950s and thank goodness it has gone.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/24/opinion/democrats-bipartisan-infrastructure-bill.html
I don't remember the 50s as I was 6 when we entered the 60s, but for me:
Outside loo only until 1963
Bathed in a tin bath in front of fire until 1963
No central heating until later in the 60s
No phone until later in the 60s and then a party line
Nobody was gay (or was it they couldn't admit it I wonder?)
Don't be black
Don't get pregnant out of wedlock
Life expectancy after retirement at 65 was negligible and pointless
If you went to a Secondary school then unless you were very lucky, tough, no matter how bright you were
Similarly getting into University. I managed it in 73, but I never met anyone else from a Secondary school that did, but I knew many who were capable and much better than those that did.
Who the hell wants to go back to those values?
Indeed many of the above who most likely voted UKIP and Leave preferred the 1950s to now
Men invented them for profit, and other men bought them to get better value for money out of their womenfolk. If we are refighting a 1950s gender war, I don't think that was a winning move on your part.
I think a lot of the disagreement within liberal circles comes down to "clash of rights", which is far more prominent in the economic sphere. To take a few examples, many activities have externalities, which poses the question of how to manage them. Unchecked capitalism results in monopoly power, harming consumers and employees. And all children's opportunities in life shouldn't be severely limited through no fault of their own, requiring some form of safety net of families.
I can see how liberalism can reasonably guide you to different conclusions once you start to consider more complex issues, rather than something as simple as capital punishment or equal rights.
For me economic centrism isn't maintaining the status quo (i.e. which equates to conservatism), but rather accepting good ideas from both right and left philosophies. From the left, let's tax wealth. From the right, let's not consider the NHS a sacred cow and consider the merits of healthcare systems from continental Europe. However, I recognise this approach ends up alienating almost everyone in some shape or form!
Personally, I want feminism to disappear because it has become irrelevant - in the same way it would be good if race became irrelevant. Any role should be open to anyone who can do it, regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, age, etc. And roles should be defined for characteristics the role requires, not to close out certain categories of people. What works for a man, woman, couple or family should be of no interest to the rest of us.
Until that time, feminism can perform a useful role in heading towards that goal - as long as the movement does not destroy itself in an orgy of stupid internal arguments.
As an aside, a nasty trend I've seen amongst online feminists is 'shaming' women who freely choose to chuck in their jobs to look after their kids. How dare they betray the cause by going back to old-fashioned roles?
Some things worth knowing if you are going to bet on the German federal elections.
The next chancellor could be different to the party with the most seats. The most likely scenarios are if CDU/CSU+FDP > SPD+Green+Linke then Amin Laschet,
if SPD+Green> CDU/CSU+FDP then either Scholz (SPD) or Baerbock (Green) depending on who gets the higher vote share.
It will get messy if AFD has more than 10% (like in 2017) or if the Linke tip the balance between the two sides. The SDP at federal level really do not want to form a coalition with Die Linke, despite having worked together well at stare level in Berlin and Thuringen. Another spanner in the works for a next chancellor market is if CDU/CSU form some kind of coalition government, but Laschet has performed badly in the campaign. Then Soeder (CSU) could still take over as chancellor. For me the most likely route to this is if the only AFD free route to a government is a Grand Coalition again, but where CDU/CSU have barely more votes than the SPD.
Moving to the distribution of Bundestag seats:
The polls in the last week are very accurate to the final result, usually within 1 percetage-point. The reason is the top-up PR system, the main article imlplies that there is a full PR system, but like in Scotland, there are 299 directly elected contituency MPs ("first vote") and the rest are assigned so that the "second vote" matches the total MP distribution.
Having said that there are some catches. The 5% hurdle means that parties who do not get 5% in the national "second vote" are not assigned proportional seats in the Bundestag. This happened to the FDP in 2013 and might happen to Die Linke this time. This means that the partys making it to the bundestag will get a higher seat share compared to vote share.
Another thing to be aware of is that the complicated assignemt system of the proportinal "second vote seats" has been changed and the Greens, FDP and Die Linke don't like the changes, as it benefits parties who get more "first vote" seats. This could mean that they get less than their fair second vote share. There has already been an unsucessful challenge to the new system, and there could be a challenge that this is unconstitutional after the election. This might have an effect on when the bookies pay out.
On a personal level this is the first time I am allowed to vote in the federal election and am looking forward to a exciting election result.
Wikipedia says there were no actual designated limits in the UK until 1967...!! seems nuts now.
Just posted to annoy malcyG.....
https://twitter.com/tom_nuttall/status/1430139430648664085
I can totally understand that: the agreeable, slightly mindless rhythm of the work, a break for lunch, more hard but meaningful labour, a good appetite at the end which needs a big tasty dinner. Plus you can eventually say: Look, I built that wall
I'm very lucky that I love my creative work, which brings emotional and intellectual satisfaction, even if sometimes it is fiendishly hard or frustrating. But if it was easy it would not be satisfying
I cannot imagine doing a job that I disliked, or a job that bored me. I'd go mad
The UK needs to align with Canada Oz and NZ of course. Hook up with France for some operations. And maybe remarry America if it returns to good sense
Locomotive engine drivers; motormen: Males 48,287, Females 1
I bet she was quite a gal!
Even more surprising:
Blast furnacemen, steel melters, etc: Males 29, Females 3
https://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/census/table_page.jsp?tab_id=EW1951OCC_M20
However, the 33-year-old he said he would rather sit in a team meeting inside a plexiglass cube than have the vaccine.
Minnesota Vikings: NFL side bring in epidemiologist to tackle vaccine hesitancy in team - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/american-football/58315660
They swear an oath to support and defend the US constitution but also to obey the orders of the US President so would be conflicted if he won in 2024 and tried to run for a third term in 2028 and refused to leave office.
Though as he would likely not be put on the ballot in most states and assuming the Congress did not object to the winner of the EC becoming the next President the constitution would likely still win out as their oath would then apply to the newly inaugrated President from 2029
One of my favourite inducers of happiness is to dragoon the daughters down to a beach with a decent stream on it and set about some major work of aquatic diversion. The daughters are there for company and also to provide an excuse, but if they drift off to other activities I am very happy to continue for as long as I am allowed to. Utterly purposeless - who cares how the water gets to the sea, especially as whatever I create will be washed away by the tide - but utterly compelling and I leave with a great sense of happiness and satisfaction and, ideally, physical tiredness.
EIGHT PINTS
Sturgeon refuses to rule out reintroducing some restrictions if necessary.
Even in the 90s, though, she was highly atypical.
https://twitter.com/indigofast/status/1430143680149704705?s=21
I love to go for long country walks and then be confronted by a small river in the woods, apparently barring my way. I will spend a happy hour building a small bridge with logs, or lugging rocks to make a ford, and then I will cross, with intense satisfaction. Much more satisfying than looking on a map and just taking a different route
It must be instinctive. Something about exploring and pioneering. The hunter gatherer beating a new path and building a new nest?
Also, of course, the endorphins from physical activity can be extremely stimulating
I recently discovered HIIT - High Intensity Interval Training - just 30 minutes of work-out, but super tough. You can do it without any equipment.
The euphoria at the end is mind-blowing, I will start singing loudly to myself. But don't do it every day. You can do yourself a nasty injury, I did. Three times a week is easily enough, do more gentle exercise the rest of the week....
On the other side the SPD and Greens are both very strongly pro European parties. The only spanner in the works is if there is a Red-Red-Green coalition (ie including Die Linke).
I'm sure that if that happens, the SPD will keep Die Linke as far away from defence and foreign policy as possible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosie_the_Riveter
The hangovers must have been ferocious.
The woman looked at the poster about booze intake which said "the advised limit is 28 units" and the woman remarked, "Well, that's not so bad, that's roughly what I drink" and then her husband said "no, darling, the limit is 28 units a week, not a day"
If the SPD do win most seats and form a government with the Greens and FDP or Linke expect the Union to shift to the right in opposition and dump Laschet and Merkelism
By contrast, beers and wines are all getting stronger, these last decades. Especially red wines
*firms up plans to buy shack in Anguilla*
So 4 pints per night 5 days a week is 60 units.