Punters don’t think Corbyn will be an MP after the next election – politicalbetting.com

Foxy said:

JosiasJessop said:

Foxy said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Foxy said:

dixiedean said:

Just seen Raab said Paul O'Grady would have had no time for wokery.
No words.

That Paul O'Grady is seen as a national treasure shows how far we have come as a society since the 1980s. I don't think Maggie would have liked him.

I do find drag as a subculture rather odd, with more than a whiff of misogyny about it. I preferred POG as himself rather than as his creation.

There has long been a showbiz tradition of cross-dressing. The pantomime dame is a bloke in drag and the principal boy is played by a woman. Music hall had its own male impersonators, like Vesta Tilley (whose husband was a Conservative MP). All that has changed is the name, so we now have drag queens and kings.

There is more to drag than cross dressing in theatre, though perhaps it originates there. Drag is a hyper-sexualised parody of women, and generally sexually explicit, even predatory.

The male Gay community is not homogenous, and has its own misogynism, and drag is a part of that.

You may gather I am not a fan.

" Drag is a hyper-sexualised parody of women"

Really?

Yes, quite obviously!

Foxy said:

JosiasJessop said:

Foxy said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Foxy said:

dixiedean said:

Just seen Raab said Paul O'Grady would have had no time for wokery.
No words.

That Paul O'Grady is seen as a national treasure shows how far we have come as a society since the 1980s. I don't think Maggie would have liked him.

I do find drag as a subculture rather odd, with more than a whiff of misogyny about it. I preferred POG as himself rather than as his creation.

There has long been a showbiz tradition of cross-dressing. The pantomime dame is a bloke in drag and the principal boy is played by a woman. Music hall had its own male impersonators, like Vesta Tilley (whose husband was a Conservative MP). All that has changed is the name, so we now have drag queens and kings.

There is more to drag than cross dressing in theatre, though perhaps it originates there. Drag is a hyper-sexualised parody of women, and generally sexually explicit, even predatory.

The male Gay community is not homogenous, and has its own misogynism, and drag is a part of that.

You may gather I am not a fan.

" Drag is a hyper-sexualised parody of women"

Really?

Yes, quite obviously!

Define 'hyper-sexualised', please.

Sean_F said:

Andy_JS said:

Here's a prediction for the future.

I wonder how long it'll be before second-hand bookshops become targets for woke-ists, because they're places where you can buy old copies of books that haven't been "updated" with the latest language. For example, if you want to buy a copy of a Roald Dahl book that definitely hasn't been altered, a second-hand bookshop will be the place to go.

Maybe it would be simpler if all books were vetted by the government, prior to publication, so that offensive material does not get published.

Maybe you're reduced to making up examples of 'wokery' to get offended by ?

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Cookie said:

Anecdata:
Talking to a bunch of mums tonight. (They are so much more revealing of personal details than dads. To be honest, I preferred it when we were talking about Janet's upcoming trip to Scarborough. You'd like Janet. She's a hairdresser. Lancashire accent. Her stories have the meandering non-sequiturs of a Peter Kay sketch. Anyway.) The subject moved onto kids with special educational needs, a subject all five of us in the conversation had some experience of. All corroborated my localised experience that SEN are suddenly much, much more common, especially in years 1/2/3. It's not just a case of more diagnoses; the number of damaged kids coming through post-lockdown is off the scale compared to what they've seen previously. A school on Rochdale was cited at which the majority of year 1 kids are non-verbal; some are still not toilet trained.
As well as a hugely damaged cohort - which is poor news when they grow to adulthood - we are going to see a lot of teachers leaving the profession. The pressures they are under are huge.

Yeah but Year 1 children would not have been "at school" during lockdown, and won't have been vaccinated, so there must be something else going on. Might this be a new form of long covid in infants?

The consensus in the conversation is that it is due to the damage done by locking down infants. That cohort were never socialised in the normal way. Many were just left to get on with it while parents worked.

JosiasJessop said:

Foxy said:

JosiasJessop said:

Foxy said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Foxy said:

dixiedean said:

Just seen Raab said Paul O'Grady would have had no time for wokery.
No words.

That Paul O'Grady is seen as a national treasure shows how far we have come as a society since the 1980s. I don't think Maggie would have liked him.

I do find drag as a subculture rather odd, with more than a whiff of misogyny about it. I preferred POG as himself rather than as his creation.

There has long been a showbiz tradition of cross-dressing. The pantomime dame is a bloke in drag and the principal boy is played by a woman. Music hall had its own male impersonators, like Vesta Tilley (whose husband was a Conservative MP). All that has changed is the name, so we now have drag queens and kings.

There is more to drag than cross dressing in theatre, though perhaps it originates there. Drag is a hyper-sexualised parody of women, and generally sexually explicit, even predatory.

The male Gay community is not homogenous, and has its own misogynism, and drag is a part of that.

You may gather I am not a fan.

" Drag is a hyper-sexualised parody of women"

Really?

Yes, quite obviously!

Foxy said:

JosiasJessop said:

Foxy said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Foxy said:

dixiedean said:

Just seen Raab said Paul O'Grady would have had no time for wokery.
No words.

That Paul O'Grady is seen as a national treasure shows how far we have come as a society since the 1980s. I don't think Maggie would have liked him.

I do find drag as a subculture rather odd, with more than a whiff of misogyny about it. I preferred POG as himself rather than as his creation.

There has long been a showbiz tradition of cross-dressing. The pantomime dame is a bloke in drag and the principal boy is played by a woman. Music hall had its own male impersonators, like Vesta Tilley (whose husband was a Conservative MP). All that has changed is the name, so we now have drag queens and kings.

There is more to drag than cross dressing in theatre, though perhaps it originates there. Drag is a hyper-sexualised parody of women, and generally sexually explicit, even predatory.

The male Gay community is not homogenous, and has its own misogynism, and drag is a part of that.

You may gather I am not a fan.

" Drag is a hyper-sexualised parody of women"

Really?

Yes, quite obviously!

Define 'hyper-sexualised', please.

Exaggerated breasts, figure hugging scanty outfits, over the top wigs and make-up.

I am surprised that you haven't noticed.

Sean_F said:

dixiedean said:

williamglenn said:

Move over Hawaii:

Tartare sauce with mushy peas?
Come on.

Guacamole.

Are you referring to the vegetables or what TSE is trying to do to keep stupid toppings on pizzas under control?

Have to say that Fife is looking fairly spectacular this morning with the last traces of mist burning off the fields and everything glistening with dew. Humza weather, perhaps.

More problems for the Swiss.
Did UBS get into this with its eyes open ?

Credit Suisse hid $700M from IRS, Senate investigators say
The alleged concealment would violate the terms of an agreement the bank had with the Justice Department to settle previous allegations.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/29/credit-suisse-violated-plea-agreement-hid-700m-irs-00089372
...The bank had paid $2.6 billion under the 2014 plea agreement with Justice.

“Credit Suisse got a discount on the penalty it faced in 2014 for enabling tax evasion because bank executives swore up and down they’d get out of the business of defrauding the United States,” he added. “This investigation shows Credit Suisse did not make good on that promise, and the bank’s pending acquisition does not wipe the slate clean.”

...Based on information requests from the committee, the bank identified 23 undeclared accounts belonging to ultra-wealthy U.S. citizens with more than $20 million at the bank. The Senate report noted that more concealed accounts could be uncovered as the bank’s review continues.

Andy_JS said:

Here's a prediction for the future.

I wonder how long it'll be before second-hand bookshops become targets for woke-ists, because they're places where you can buy old copies of books that haven't been "updated" with the latest language. For example, if you want to buy a copy of a Roald Dahl book that definitely hasn't been altered, a second-hand bookshop will be the place to go.

But we already have 'woke bookshops' being condemned on PB.

Heathener said:

Foxy said:

Stark_Dawning said:

Andy_JS said:

Here's a prediction for the future.

I wonder how long it'll be before second-hand bookshops become targets for woke-ists, because they're places where you can buy old copies of books that haven't been "updated" with the latest language. For example, if you want to buy a copy of a Roald Dahl book that definitely hasn't been altered, a second-hand bookshop will be the place to go.

I actually think the Roald Dahl bowdlerization will be dropped (when the owners think no one is looking) sooner rather than later. What I found telling was how few people on the Left even bothered to defend it. For once this really was a case of Wokeism/political correctness gone made.

The problem was more the naff way that the Dahl rewrite was done rather than the principle of it.

Works have long been altered to suit contemporary mores. The term "bowdlerisation" originates from the early 19th century editing of a version of Shakespeare to edit out the naughty bits. The schools edition of The Canterbury Tales I did for O level in the 1980s too. Agatha Christies "Ten little redacteds" has long been renamed as ""Then there were None" etc. Dahl himself changed the origin story of the Oompa Loompas.

Updating these works to modern tastes isn't itself a problem, but it does need to be done in tune with the authors style. There may be some right wing culture warriors gleefully reading to their children "Tintin in the Congo" *, but I don't thinknthat the worst thing that they will do to their children.

*as a TinTin fan, I do have a copy, and my boys have read it. We had an interesting discussion about colonialism and racist stereotypes as a result, but they were teenagers by then, and up to that sort of analysis while retaining their love of Tintin.

Really good post.

Not often I agree with you but this is well reasoned and well put.

I recently watched the Germans episode of Fawlty Towers again and it made me cringe. It's not the parts with the Germans, which can be covered by the 'fact' that Basil was concussed, and which remain very funny.

It's the Major's remarks about w*gs and ni*gers which really aren't on in this day and age.

I had a similar thing when I decided to watch some of Ronnie Corbett's soliloquy sketches and discovered that they are really homophobic. Not in a funny way. Just vile.

I know the Daily Malicious loves to wind everyone up about such things but sometimes we really do need to move things along.

And crucially, it's not about saying the original writers and performers were bad people. Just that they didn't notice stuff at the time, because hardly anyone did.

YBarddCwsc said:

CarlottaVance said:

Foxy said:

JosiasJessop said:

Foxy said:

JosiasJessop said:

Foxy said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Foxy said:

dixiedean said:

Just seen Raab said Paul O'Grady would have had no time for wokery.
No words.

That Paul O'Grady is seen as a national treasure shows how far we have come as a society since the 1980s. I don't think Maggie would have liked him.

I do find drag as a subculture rather odd, with more than a whiff of misogyny about it. I preferred POG as himself rather than as his creation.

There has long been a showbiz tradition of cross-dressing. The pantomime dame is a bloke in drag and the principal boy is played by a woman. Music hall had its own male impersonators, like Vesta Tilley (whose husband was a Conservative MP). All that has changed is the name, so we now have drag queens and kings.

There is more to drag than cross dressing in theatre, though perhaps it originates there. Drag is a hyper-sexualised parody of women, and generally sexually explicit, even predatory.

The male Gay community is not homogenous, and has its own misogynism, and drag is a part of that.

You may gather I am not a fan.

" Drag is a hyper-sexualised parody of women"

Really?

Yes, quite obviously!

Foxy said:

JosiasJessop said:

Foxy said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Foxy said:

dixiedean said:

Just seen Raab said Paul O'Grady would have had no time for wokery.
No words.

That Paul O'Grady is seen as a national treasure shows how far we have come as a society since the 1980s. I don't think Maggie would have liked him.

I do find drag as a subculture rather odd, with more than a whiff of misogyny about it. I preferred POG as himself rather than as his creation.

There has long been a showbiz tradition of cross-dressing. The pantomime dame is a bloke in drag and the principal boy is played by a woman. Music hall had its own male impersonators, like Vesta Tilley (whose husband was a Conservative MP). All that has changed is the name, so we now have drag queens and kings.

There is more to drag than cross dressing in theatre, though perhaps it originates there. Drag is a hyper-sexualised parody of women, and generally sexually explicit, even predatory.

The male Gay community is not homogenous, and has its own misogynism, and drag is a part of that.

You may gather I am not a fan.

" Drag is a hyper-sexualised parody of women"

Really?

Yes, quite obviously!

Define 'hyper-sexualised', please.

Exaggerated breasts, figure hugging scanty outfits, over the top wigs and make-up.

I am surprised that you haven't noticed.

You’re conflating “Ru Paul’s Drag Race” with the British tradition of drag - which is comedic rather than sexualised:

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/gallery/2020/dec/19/oh-yes-she-is-panto-dames-through-the-decades-in-pictures

There is a clear strain of mockery and misogyny in drag.

Absolutely. Men in drag are almost universally mocking "female" characteristics such as being stupid, narrow minded, over emotional, irrational and lots of things all the women I know just aren't. Mrs Brown's boys inevitably comes to mind.

TheScreamingEagles said:

Clever.

A Labour government would freeze council tax, Sir Keir Starmer is expected to say on Thursday as he tries to cast himself as the candidate of low tax for workers.

As he launches Labour’s local elections campaign in Swindon, Starmer will say that if he were prime minister, council tax bills would stay at the same level rather than rising as they will do this weekend. Labour would fund this with a “proper” windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas companies.

Starmer argues that voters have a clear “choice” on tax, contrasting his wish to freeze council tax with the scrapping of the tax-free lifetime allowance limit for wealthy pensioners announced by Jeremy Hunt in the budget a fortnight ago.

In a speech to party supporters, Starmer is expected to say: “There is a choice on tax. A Tory choice — taxes up for working people, tax cuts for the 1 per cent — or a Labour choice, where we cut business rates to save our high streets and where, if there was a Labour government, you could take that council tax rise you just got and rip it up.

“A Labour government would freeze your council tax this year — that’s our choice. A tax cut for the many, not just for the top 1 per cent. So take this message to every doorstep in your community: Labour is the party of lower taxes for working people.”

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/keir-starmer-speech-labour-to-freeze-council-tax-63h9rpvcq

Clever, possibly too clever if you keep using a windfall tax. But Council Tax is visible in a way that PAYE and VAT aren't. Originally that was part of the design, to make it clear which councils were frugal and which ones weren't. That's got lost on the way, because now virtually every council has to charge as much as it's allowed to underfund the bare minimum of services.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/mar/30/britons-more-confidence-in-eu-than-westminster-poll-brexit

UK public now have more faith in the EU than in the British government or Westminster Parliament.

Foxy said:

JosiasJessop said:

Foxy said:

JosiasJessop said:

Foxy said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Foxy said:

dixiedean said:

Just seen Raab said Paul O'Grady would have had no time for wokery.
No words.

That Paul O'Grady is seen as a national treasure shows how far we have come as a society since the 1980s. I don't think Maggie would have liked him.

I do find drag as a subculture rather odd, with more than a whiff of misogyny about it. I preferred POG as himself rather than as his creation.

There has long been a showbiz tradition of cross-dressing. The pantomime dame is a bloke in drag and the principal boy is played by a woman. Music hall had its own male impersonators, like Vesta Tilley (whose husband was a Conservative MP). All that has changed is the name, so we now have drag queens and kings.

There is more to drag than cross dressing in theatre, though perhaps it originates there. Drag is a hyper-sexualised parody of women, and generally sexually explicit, even predatory.

The male Gay community is not homogenous, and has its own misogynism, and drag is a part of that.

You may gather I am not a fan.

" Drag is a hyper-sexualised parody of women"

Really?

Yes, quite obviously!

Foxy said:

JosiasJessop said:

Foxy said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Foxy said:

dixiedean said:

Just seen Raab said Paul O'Grady would have had no time for wokery.
No words.

That Paul O'Grady is seen as a national treasure shows how far we have come as a society since the 1980s. I don't think Maggie would have liked him.

I do find drag as a subculture rather odd, with more than a whiff of misogyny about it. I preferred POG as himself rather than as his creation.

There has long been a showbiz tradition of cross-dressing. The pantomime dame is a bloke in drag and the principal boy is played by a woman. Music hall had its own male impersonators, like Vesta Tilley (whose husband was a Conservative MP). All that has changed is the name, so we now have drag queens and kings.

There is more to drag than cross dressing in theatre, though perhaps it originates there. Drag is a hyper-sexualised parody of women, and generally sexually explicit, even predatory.

The male Gay community is not homogenous, and has its own misogynism, and drag is a part of that.

You may gather I am not a fan.

" Drag is a hyper-sexualised parody of women"

Really?

Yes, quite obviously!

Define 'hyper-sexualised', please.

Exaggerated breasts, figure hugging scanty outfits, over the top wigs and make-up.

I am surprised that you haven't noticed.

It's a bit more complicated than that.

This, for example, is also an example of drag.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Scarlett

DavidL said:

Have to say that Fife is looking fairly spectacular this morning with the last traces of mist burning off the fields and everything glistening with dew. Humza weather, perhaps.

I've always said that the view of Fife is the best thing about Dundee...

Stuartinromford said:

Heathener said:

Foxy said:

Stark_Dawning said:

Andy_JS said:

Here's a prediction for the future.

I wonder how long it'll be before second-hand bookshops become targets for woke-ists, because they're places where you can buy old copies of books that haven't been "updated" with the latest language. For example, if you want to buy a copy of a Roald Dahl book that definitely hasn't been altered, a second-hand bookshop will be the place to go.

I actually think the Roald Dahl bowdlerization will be dropped (when the owners think no one is looking) sooner rather than later. What I found telling was how few people on the Left even bothered to defend it. For once this really was a case of Wokeism/political correctness gone made.

The problem was more the naff way that the Dahl rewrite was done rather than the principle of it.

Works have long been altered to suit contemporary mores. The term "bowdlerisation" originates from the early 19th century editing of a version of Shakespeare to edit out the naughty bits. The schools edition of The Canterbury Tales I did for O level in the 1980s too. Agatha Christies "Ten little redacteds" has long been renamed as ""Then there were None" etc. Dahl himself changed the origin story of the Oompa Loompas.

Updating these works to modern tastes isn't itself a problem, but it does need to be done in tune with the authors style. There may be some right wing culture warriors gleefully reading to their children "Tintin in the Congo" *, but I don't thinknthat the worst thing that they will do to their children.

*as a TinTin fan, I do have a copy, and my boys have read it. We had an interesting discussion about colonialism and racist stereotypes as a result, but they were teenagers by then, and up to that sort of analysis while retaining their love of Tintin.

Really good post.

Not often I agree with you but this is well reasoned and well put.

I recently watched the Germans episode of Fawlty Towers again and it made me cringe. It's not the parts with the Germans, which can be covered by the 'fact' that Basil was concussed, and which remain very funny.

It's the Major's remarks about w*gs and ni*gers which really aren't on in this day and age.

I had a similar thing when I decided to watch some of Ronnie Corbett's soliloquy sketches and discovered that they are really homophobic. Not in a funny way. Just vile.

I know the Daily Malicious loves to wind everyone up about such things but sometimes we really do need to move things along.

And crucially, it's not about saying the original writers and performers were bad people. Just that they didn't notice stuff at the time, because hardly anyone did.

I have recently been re-reading Neville Shute's book "In the Wet", fascinating in many ways, but fabulously racist with the main character nicknamed "N*****r" and referred too throughout by that name. The character is a quarter Australian Aboriginee. It would be impossible to rewrite as his ethnicity is a key plot element.

Fascinating read though for its depiction of the 1980's imagined by an Anglo-Australian in the early 1950's. Shute got almost everything wrong, but in a way that tells a great deal about British culture of the time. He was a good writer too, and a best seller in his day.

Nigelb said:

Foxy said:

JosiasJessop said:

Foxy said:

JosiasJessop said:

Foxy said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Foxy said:

dixiedean said:

Just seen Raab said Paul O'Grady would have had no time for wokery.
No words.

That Paul O'Grady is seen as a national treasure shows how far we have come as a society since the 1980s. I don't think Maggie would have liked him.

I do find drag as a subculture rather odd, with more than a whiff of misogyny about it. I preferred POG as himself rather than as his creation.

There has long been a showbiz tradition of cross-dressing. The pantomime dame is a bloke in drag and the principal boy is played by a woman. Music hall had its own male impersonators, like Vesta Tilley (whose husband was a Conservative MP). All that has changed is the name, so we now have drag queens and kings.

There is more to drag than cross dressing in theatre, though perhaps it originates there. Drag is a hyper-sexualised parody of women, and generally sexually explicit, even predatory.

The male Gay community is not homogenous, and has its own misogynism, and drag is a part of that.

You may gather I am not a fan.

" Drag is a hyper-sexualised parody of women"

Really?

Yes, quite obviously!

Foxy said:

JosiasJessop said:

Foxy said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Foxy said:

dixiedean said:

Just seen Raab said Paul O'Grady would have had no time for wokery.
No words.

That Paul O'Grady is seen as a national treasure shows how far we have come as a society since the 1980s. I don't think Maggie would have liked him.

I do find drag as a subculture rather odd, with more than a whiff of misogyny about it. I preferred POG as himself rather than as his creation.

There has long been a showbiz tradition of cross-dressing. The pantomime dame is a bloke in drag and the principal boy is played by a woman. Music hall had its own male impersonators, like Vesta Tilley (whose husband was a Conservative MP). All that has changed is the name, so we now have drag queens and kings.

There is more to drag than cross dressing in theatre, though perhaps it originates there. Drag is a hyper-sexualised parody of women, and generally sexually explicit, even predatory.

The male Gay community is not homogenous, and has its own misogynism, and drag is a part of that.

You may gather I am not a fan.

" Drag is a hyper-sexualised parody of women"

Really?

Yes, quite obviously!

Define 'hyper-sexualised', please.

Exaggerated breasts, figure hugging scanty outfits, over the top wigs and make-up.

I am surprised that you haven't noticed.

It's a bit more complicated than that.

This, for example, is also an example of drag.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Scarlett

Oh, hypersexuality is certainly not the entirety of drag, but it is quite a definite element. It is part of its transgressive nature that appeals to many. Britons are still quite buttoned up about sexuality of women or gay men.

The Black and White Minstrels could sing and dance quite well too, but tastes have moved on.

MarqueeMark said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Clever.

A Labour government would freeze council tax, Sir Keir Starmer is expected to say on Thursday as he tries to cast himself as the candidate of low tax for workers.

As he launches Labour’s local elections campaign in Swindon, Starmer will say that if he were prime minister, council tax bills would stay at the same level rather than rising as they will do this weekend. Labour would fund this with a “proper” windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas companies.

Starmer argues that voters have a clear “choice” on tax, contrasting his wish to freeze council tax with the scrapping of the tax-free lifetime allowance limit for wealthy pensioners announced by Jeremy Hunt in the budget a fortnight ago.

In a speech to party supporters, Starmer is expected to say: “There is a choice on tax. A Tory choice — taxes up for working people, tax cuts for the 1 per cent — or a Labour choice, where we cut business rates to save our high streets and where, if there was a Labour government, you could take that council tax rise you just got and rip it up.

“A Labour government would freeze your council tax this year — that’s our choice. A tax cut for the many, not just for the top 1 per cent. So take this message to every doorstep in your community: Labour is the party of lower taxes for working people.”

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/keir-starmer-speech-labour-to-freeze-council-tax-63h9rpvcq

"Labour would fund this with a “proper” windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas companies."

Thereby buggering up your pensions. Not so clever.

Labour really do still think the profits of BP and Shell go to four or five massively rich people. Instead of being paid out in dividends to pension funds. They are still not to be trusted when it comes to money.

Tory excess profit levies good; Labour windfall taxes bad. Is that it?

Foxy said:

Stuartinromford said:

Heathener said:

Foxy said:

Stark_Dawning said:

Andy_JS said:

Here's a prediction for the future.

I wonder how long it'll be before second-hand bookshops become targets for woke-ists, because they're places where you can buy old copies of books that haven't been "updated" with the latest language. For example, if you want to buy a copy of a Roald Dahl book that definitely hasn't been altered, a second-hand bookshop will be the place to go.

I actually think the Roald Dahl bowdlerization will be dropped (when the owners think no one is looking) sooner rather than later. What I found telling was how few people on the Left even bothered to defend it. For once this really was a case of Wokeism/political correctness gone made.

The problem was more the naff way that the Dahl rewrite was done rather than the principle of it.

Works have long been altered to suit contemporary mores. The term "bowdlerisation" originates from the early 19th century editing of a version of Shakespeare to edit out the naughty bits. The schools edition of The Canterbury Tales I did for O level in the 1980s too. Agatha Christies "Ten little redacteds" has long been renamed as ""Then there were None" etc. Dahl himself changed the origin story of the Oompa Loompas.

Updating these works to modern tastes isn't itself a problem, but it does need to be done in tune with the authors style. There may be some right wing culture warriors gleefully reading to their children "Tintin in the Congo" *, but I don't thinknthat the worst thing that they will do to their children.

*as a TinTin fan, I do have a copy, and my boys have read it. We had an interesting discussion about colonialism and racist stereotypes as a result, but they were teenagers by then, and up to that sort of analysis while retaining their love of Tintin.

Really good post.

Not often I agree with you but this is well reasoned and well put.

I recently watched the Germans episode of Fawlty Towers again and it made me cringe. It's not the parts with the Germans, which can be covered by the 'fact' that Basil was concussed, and which remain very funny.

It's the Major's remarks about w*gs and ni*gers which really aren't on in this day and age.

I had a similar thing when I decided to watch some of Ronnie Corbett's soliloquy sketches and discovered that they are really homophobic. Not in a funny way. Just vile.

I know the Daily Malicious loves to wind everyone up about such things but sometimes we really do need to move things along.

And crucially, it's not about saying the original writers and performers were bad people. Just that they didn't notice stuff at the time, because hardly anyone did.

I have recently been re-reading Neville Shute's book "In the Wet", fascinating in many ways, but fabulously racist with the main character nicknamed "N*****r" and referred too throughout by that name. The character is a quarter Australian Aboriginee. It would be impossible to rewrite as his ethnicity is a key plot element.

Fascinating read though for its depiction of the 1980's imagined by an Anglo-Australian in the early 1950's. Shute got almost everything wrong, but in a way that tells a great deal about British culture of the time. He was a good writer too, and a best seller in his day.

I doubt if it would be possible to rewrite anything written by Evelyn Waug.

FF43 said:

DavidL said:

Sean_F said:

Leon said:

Emerald said:

The great Humza Yousaf

After having an affair Yousef blamed his wife for not being a good enough Muslim. When there was no place at a nursery for his daughter, he arranged a sting operation that attempted to prove that the nursery was racist. "What sort of person does this?"

https://twitter.com/HousewifePolish/status/1641034656165289987?s=20

He might actually be worse than Truss

Agent Yousaf will be great for the pro-Union cause.

But not so great for a Scotland already groaning from years of mismanagement, procrastination and gimmicks instead of solutions.

Yep. As the UK has also been groaning from years of mismanagement, procrastination and gimmicks instead of solutions, we get the double dose, don't we?

We do indeed. Sunak has been a clear improvement in this area although I freely acknowledge that this Rwanda nonsense is a classic gimmick. I am disappointed that Forbes did not get a go at trying to run Scotland properly with a view to making it fit for independence (or even a more equal place in the Union). But her chance may come again soon enough.

another_richard said:

From January 2022:

She laid out how the prices of “value” product ranges in supermarkets had soared over the last decade – rice in her local supermarket had increased in price from 45p for a kilogram bag last year, to £1 for 500g, a 344% increase – and how the number of value products has shrunk.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jan/26/terry-pratchett-jack-monroe-vimes-boots-poverty-index

Bought a kg of rice from Tesco today for 45p.

Mmmmmm, floor sweepings grade. Lets assume Tesco are down to 20% gross profit on that line and the factory are giving it away at 15% production margin. So we're at 32.61p for a kilo. Take other non-food overheads out and you're eating "rice" which costs about 25p a kilo. Mmmmmmm.

This is the problem with cheap food. That you can buy this product does not mean that there isn't a real problem with commodity prices shooting up on food. This has absolutely cut the number of value items for sale and the quality of those items.

I don't put the blame for this on the supermarkets though. Sourcing floor sweepings grade ingredients in sufficient quantity becomes harder as prices get squeezed and consumers are forced by price to buy more and more of the cheaper product. You can't give the good stuff away at that price, you simply reduce supply.

Carnyx said:

Andy_JS said:

Here's a prediction for the future.

I wonder how long it'll be before second-hand bookshops become targets for woke-ists, because they're places where you can buy old copies of books that haven't been "updated" with the latest language. For example, if you want to buy a copy of a Roald Dahl book that definitely hasn't been altered, a second-hand bookshop will be the place to go.

But we already have 'woke bookshops' being condemned on PB.

Not to mention woke meat..

FF43 said:

DavidL said:

Sean_F said:

Leon said:

Emerald said:

The great Humza Yousaf

After having an affair Yousef blamed his wife for not being a good enough Muslim. When there was no place at a nursery for his daughter, he arranged a sting operation that attempted to prove that the nursery was racist. "What sort of person does this?"

https://twitter.com/HousewifePolish/status/1641034656165289987?s=20

He might actually be worse than Truss

Agent Yousaf will be great for the pro-Union cause.

But not so great for a Scotland already groaning from years of mismanagement, procrastination and gimmicks instead of solutions.

Yep. As the UK has also been groaning from years of mismanagement, procrastination and gimmicks instead of solutions, we get the double dose, don't we?

At least we voted for one of them while the other was imposed upon us. Of course those who favour retaining the imposition see that as a feature rather than a bug.

Sean_F said:

Foxy said:

Stuartinromford said:

Heathener said:

Foxy said:

Stark_Dawning said:

Andy_JS said:

Here's a prediction for the future.

I wonder how long it'll be before second-hand bookshops become targets for woke-ists, because they're places where you can buy old copies of books that haven't been "updated" with the latest language. For example, if you want to buy a copy of a Roald Dahl book that definitely hasn't been altered, a second-hand bookshop will be the place to go.

I actually think the Roald Dahl bowdlerization will be dropped (when the owners think no one is looking) sooner rather than later. What I found telling was how few people on the Left even bothered to defend it. For once this really was a case of Wokeism/political correctness gone made.

The problem was more the naff way that the Dahl rewrite was done rather than the principle of it.

Works have long been altered to suit contemporary mores. The term "bowdlerisation" originates from the early 19th century editing of a version of Shakespeare to edit out the naughty bits. The schools edition of The Canterbury Tales I did for O level in the 1980s too. Agatha Christies "Ten little redacteds" has long been renamed as ""Then there were None" etc. Dahl himself changed the origin story of the Oompa Loompas.

Updating these works to modern tastes isn't itself a problem, but it does need to be done in tune with the authors style. There may be some right wing culture warriors gleefully reading to their children "Tintin in the Congo" *, but I don't thinknthat the worst thing that they will do to their children.

*as a TinTin fan, I do have a copy, and my boys have read it. We had an interesting discussion about colonialism and racist stereotypes as a result, but they were teenagers by then, and up to that sort of analysis while retaining their love of Tintin.

Really good post.

Not often I agree with you but this is well reasoned and well put.

I recently watched the Germans episode of Fawlty Towers again and it made me cringe. It's not the parts with the Germans, which can be covered by the 'fact' that Basil was concussed, and which remain very funny.

It's the Major's remarks about w*gs and ni*gers which really aren't on in this day and age.

I had a similar thing when I decided to watch some of Ronnie Corbett's soliloquy sketches and discovered that they are really homophobic. Not in a funny way. Just vile.

I know the Daily Malicious loves to wind everyone up about such things but sometimes we really do need to move things along.

And crucially, it's not about saying the original writers and performers were bad people. Just that they didn't notice stuff at the time, because hardly anyone did.

I have recently been re-reading Neville Shute's book "In the Wet", fascinating in many ways, but fabulously racist with the main character nicknamed "N*****r" and referred too throughout by that name. The character is a quarter Australian Aboriginee. It would be impossible to rewrite as his ethnicity is a key plot element.

Fascinating read though for its depiction of the 1980's imagined by an Anglo-Australian in the early 1950's. Shute got almost everything wrong, but in a way that tells a great deal about British culture of the time. He was a good writer too, and a best seller in his day.

I doubt if it would be possible to rewrite anything written by Evelyn Waug.

Pronouncing your spelling of Waugh may offend a few sensibilities.

RochdalePioneers said:

another_richard said:

From January 2022:

She laid out how the prices of “value” product ranges in supermarkets had soared over the last decade – rice in her local supermarket had increased in price from 45p for a kilogram bag last year, to £1 for 500g, a 344% increase – and how the number of value products has shrunk.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jan/26/terry-pratchett-jack-monroe-vimes-boots-poverty-index

Bought a kg of rice from Tesco today for 45p.

Mmmmmm, floor sweepings grade. Lets assume Tesco are down to 20% gross profit on that line and the factory are giving it away at 15% production margin. So we're at 32.61p for a kilo. Take other non-food overheads out and you're eating "rice" which costs about 25p a kilo. Mmmmmmm.

This is the problem with cheap food. That you can buy this product does not mean that there isn't a real problem with commodity prices shooting up on food. This has absolutely cut the number of value items for sale and the quality of those items.

I don't put the blame for this on the supermarkets though. Sourcing floor sweepings grade ingredients in sufficient quantity becomes harder as prices get squeezed and consumers are forced by price to buy more and more of the cheaper product. You can't give the good stuff away at that price, you simply reduce supply.

So rice doesn't just come in boxes with Uncle Ben's on the outside? Every day a learning day on PB.

Sean_F said:

Carnyx said:

Heathener said:

Foxy said:

Stark_Dawning said:

Andy_JS said:

Here's a prediction for the future.

I wonder how long it'll be before second-hand bookshops become targets for woke-ists, because they're places where you can buy old copies of books that haven't been "updated" with the latest language. For example, if you want to buy a copy of a Roald Dahl book that definitely hasn't been altered, a second-hand bookshop will be the place to go.

I actually think the Roald Dahl bowdlerization will be dropped (when the owners think no one is looking) sooner rather than later. What I found telling was how few people on the Left even bothered to defend it. For once this really was a case of Wokeism/political correctness gone made.

The problem was more the naff way that the Dahl rewrite was done rather than the principle of it.

Works have long been altered to suit contemporary mores. The term "bowdlerisation" originates from the early 19th century editing of a version of Shakespeare to edit out the naughty bits. The schools edition of The Canterbury Tales I did for O level in the 1980s too. Agatha Christies "Ten little redacteds" has long been renamed as ""Then there were None" etc. Dahl himself changed the origin story of the Oompa Loompas.

Updating these works to modern tastes isn't itself a problem, but it does need to be done in tune with the authors style. There may be some right wing culture warriors gleefully reading to their children "Tintin in the Congo" *, but I don't thinknthat the worst thing that they will do to their children.

*as a TinTin fan, I do have a copy, and my boys have read it. We had an interesting discussion about colonialism and racist stereotypes as a result, but they were teenagers by then, and up to that sort of analysis while retaining their love of Tintin.

Really good post.

Not often I agree with you but this is well reasoned and well put.

I recently watched the Germans episode of Fawlty Towers again and it made me cringe. It's not the parts with the Germans, which can be covered by the 'fact' that Basil was concussed, and which remain very funny.

It's the Major's remarks about w*gs and ni*gers which really aren't on in this day and age.

I had a similar thing when I decided to watch some of Ronnie Corbett's soliloquy sketches and discovered that they are really homophobic. Not in a funny way. Just vile.

I know the Daily Malicious loves to wind everyone up about such things but sometimes we really do need to move things along.

What really shocked me about the remake of the Dambusters was the way in which it was [edit] fericiously attacked by those woke-hunters who were only worried about the name of one dog. Yet the original dog's name would be a total wtf to anyone of the younger generation who would have been wondering what those people were like to call dogs that name. So, just for a little bit of woke-baiting, the attempt to bring the heroism and, it should be remembered, self-sacrifice of the crews to a modern audience was completely derailed.

The worst bowdlerisation is when they remove the scene showing the drowning foreign slave workers.

Any honest portrayal of war should show that innocents do suffer, even when the cause is just.

And also showing why we fought in the first place. On the dogs name, I am conflicted. It’s a historical fact, and the film is based on history. It’s not, however, a documentary, any more than the Longest Day was, or Saving Private Ryan, or Band of Brothers. So actually, calling him Bob or whatever doesn’t amount to much, but avoids unnecessary questions.
There is an issue with what happens to older TV programmes. If you recoil from Fawlty Towers ‘The Germans’ because of the Major, you are somewhat falling into the Alf Garnett trap. We are mocking the Major for his antiquated views. Yet the scene with the doctor is arguably far far worse. I get that Fawlty is concussed but his reaction is incredible.

We should cut people slack for creating art in the accepted norms of the time. Otherwise we will have no art left at all.

I am sure that I should know the answer to this but is murdering the person opposite who has been loudly sniffing every minute for the last hour merely provocation or self defence? Maybe one for the office today.

OnlyLivingBoy said:

DavidL said:

Have to say that Fife is looking fairly spectacular this morning with the last traces of mist burning off the fields and everything glistening with dew. Humza weather, perhaps.

I've always said that the view of Fife is the best thing about Dundee...

I thought it was the other way round!

TheScreamingEagles said:

Clever.

A Labour government would freeze council tax, Sir Keir Starmer is expected to say on Thursday as he tries to cast himself as the candidate of low tax for workers.

As he launches Labour’s local elections campaign in Swindon, Starmer will say that if he were prime minister, council tax bills would stay at the same level rather than rising as they will do this weekend. Labour would fund this with a “proper” windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas companies.

Starmer argues that voters have a clear “choice” on tax, contrasting his wish to freeze council tax with the scrapping of the tax-free lifetime allowance limit for wealthy pensioners announced by Jeremy Hunt in the budget a fortnight ago.

In a speech to party supporters, Starmer is expected to say: “There is a choice on tax. A Tory choice — taxes up for working people, tax cuts for the 1 per cent — or a Labour choice, where we cut business rates to save our high streets and where, if there was a Labour government, you could take that council tax rise you just got and rip it up.

“A Labour government would freeze your council tax this year — that’s our choice. A tax cut for the many, not just for the top 1 per cent. So take this message to every doorstep in your community: Labour is the party of lower taxes for working people.”

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/keir-starmer-speech-labour-to-freeze-council-tax-63h9rpvcq

Labour will be the party of wealthy retired homeowners when in government, same as the current government is.

It will be interesting to see how large an effect this has on voting intention by age, once the first couple of Labour budgetsb have gone by.

RochdalePioneers said:

DavidL said:

Sean_F said:

Leon said:

Emerald said:

The great Humza Yousaf

After having an affair Yousef blamed his wife for not being a good enough Muslim. When there was no place at a nursery for his daughter, he arranged a sting operation that attempted to prove that the nursery was racist. "What sort of person does this?"

https://twitter.com/HousewifePolish/status/1641034656165289987?s=20

He might actually be worse than Truss

Agent Yousaf will be great for the pro-Union cause.

But not so great for a Scotland already groaning from years of mismanagement, procrastination and gimmicks instead of solutions.

Having lived most of my life in England it is no different down there. Different mismanagement and gimmicks. Our problem isn't that the SNP have won the last 4 elections. Our problem is much wider than that.

Labour will win the General Election having rightly identified what is wrong with the country and rightly pinned the blame on the Tories. But they won't be able to fix any of those issues because they are structural and modern politics only allows for gimmicks. Same with whomever eventually replaces the SNP in Holyrood.

People say that governments are poor because they are only looking to the next election. However, governments that are in power for a long time are even worse.

MarqueeMark said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Clever.

A Labour government would freeze council tax, Sir Keir Starmer is expected to say on Thursday as he tries to cast himself as the candidate of low tax for workers.

As he launches Labour’s local elections campaign in Swindon, Starmer will say that if he were prime minister, council tax bills would stay at the same level rather than rising as they will do this weekend. Labour would fund this with a “proper” windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas companies.

Starmer argues that voters have a clear “choice” on tax, contrasting his wish to freeze council tax with the scrapping of the tax-free lifetime allowance limit for wealthy pensioners announced by Jeremy Hunt in the budget a fortnight ago.

In a speech to party supporters, Starmer is expected to say: “There is a choice on tax. A Tory choice — taxes up for working people, tax cuts for the 1 per cent — or a Labour choice, where we cut business rates to save our high streets and where, if there was a Labour government, you could take that council tax rise you just got and rip it up.

“A Labour government would freeze your council tax this year — that’s our choice. A tax cut for the many, not just for the top 1 per cent. So take this message to every doorstep in your community: Labour is the party of lower taxes for working people.”

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/keir-starmer-speech-labour-to-freeze-council-tax-63h9rpvcq

"Labour would fund this with a “proper” windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas companies."

Thereby buggering up your pensions. Not so clever.

Labour really do still think the profits of BP and Shell go to four or five massively rich people. Instead of being paid out in dividends to pension funds. They are still not to be trusted when it comes to money.

Sure, but as a political move it's gold.

Starmer knows Council Tax is at or near the top of the public's most hated taxes list and he knows that people have bought his oil excess profits narrative.

Fairliered said:

RochdalePioneers said:

DavidL said:

Sean_F said:

Leon said:

Emerald said:

The great Humza Yousaf

After having an affair Yousef blamed his wife for not being a good enough Muslim. When there was no place at a nursery for his daughter, he arranged a sting operation that attempted to prove that the nursery was racist. "What sort of person does this?"

https://twitter.com/HousewifePolish/status/1641034656165289987?s=20

He might actually be worse than Truss

Agent Yousaf will be great for the pro-Union cause.

But not so great for a Scotland already groaning from years of mismanagement, procrastination and gimmicks instead of solutions.

Having lived most of my life in England it is no different down there. Different mismanagement and gimmicks. Our problem isn't that the SNP have won the last 4 elections. Our problem is much wider than that.

Labour will win the General Election having rightly identified what is wrong with the country and rightly pinned the blame on the Tories. But they won't be able to fix any of those issues because they are structural and modern politics only allows for gimmicks. Same with whomever eventually replaces the SNP in Holyrood.

People say that governments are poor because they are only looking to the next election. However, governments that are in power for a long time are even worse.

The critique is rather than government plan only for when they are, or think they'll be in power. Looking beyond the next election shouldn't be an assumption that you're still in office.
That's perhaps one reason we fail on infrastructure.

RochdalePioneers said:

DavidL said:

Sean_F said:

Leon said:

Emerald said:

The great Humza Yousaf

After having an affair Yousef blamed his wife for not being a good enough Muslim. When there was no place at a nursery for his daughter, he arranged a sting operation that attempted to prove that the nursery was racist. "What sort of person does this?"

https://twitter.com/HousewifePolish/status/1641034656165289987?s=20

He might actually be worse than Truss

Agent Yousaf will be great for the pro-Union cause.

But not so great for a Scotland already groaning from years of mismanagement, procrastination and gimmicks instead of solutions.

Having lived most of my life in England it is no different down there. Different mismanagement and gimmicks. Our problem isn't that the SNP have won the last 4 elections. Our problem is much wider than that.

Labour will win the General Election having rightly identified what is wrong with the country and rightly pinned the blame on the Tories. But they won't be able to fix any of those issues because they are structural and modern politics only allows for gimmicks. Same with whomever eventually replaces the SNP in Holyrood.

Is it being so cheerful that keeps you going?

I actually agree. Modern governments have remarkably small windows for action and otherwise get dragged along by international bureaucracies and unaccountable administrations. They therefore shout loud about the few things that they can actually change trying to make themselves sound relevant and significant.

Stocky said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

MarqueeMark said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Clever.

A Labour government would freeze council tax, Sir Keir Starmer is expected to say on Thursday as he tries to cast himself as the candidate of low tax for workers.

As he launches Labour’s local elections campaign in Swindon, Starmer will say that if he were prime minister, council tax bills would stay at the same level rather than rising as they will do this weekend. Labour would fund this with a “proper” windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas companies.

Starmer argues that voters have a clear “choice” on tax, contrasting his wish to freeze council tax with the scrapping of the tax-free lifetime allowance limit for wealthy pensioners announced by Jeremy Hunt in the budget a fortnight ago.

In a speech to party supporters, Starmer is expected to say: “There is a choice on tax. A Tory choice — taxes up for working people, tax cuts for the 1 per cent — or a Labour choice, where we cut business rates to save our high streets and where, if there was a Labour government, you could take that council tax rise you just got and rip it up.

“A Labour government would freeze your council tax this year — that’s our choice. A tax cut for the many, not just for the top 1 per cent. So take this message to every doorstep in your community: Labour is the party of lower taxes for working people.”

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/keir-starmer-speech-labour-to-freeze-council-tax-63h9rpvcq

"Labour would fund this with a “proper” windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas companies."

Thereby buggering up your pensions. Not so clever.

Labour really do still think the profits of BP and Shell go to four or five massively rich people. Instead of being paid out in dividends to pension funds. They are still not to be trusted when it comes to money.

Tory excess profit levies good; Labour windfall taxes bad. Is that it?

Different names for the same thing, surely?

We raise a levy on excess profits; you impose windfall taxes; he's an embezzler.

We had a really disconcerting experience last night. About 8pm, the internet went off. Not just landlines but cell signal and 5G and mobile data, on all networks. We don't have terrestrial TV or Sky, so I had to sit in the van and listen to radio to make sure it wasn't an alien invasion or Putin going buckwild! I'm off to town imminently to get a battery powered radio to put in my apocalypse survival bag for next time!

Carnyx said:

Sean_F said:

Carnyx said:

Heathener said:

Foxy said:

Stark_Dawning said:

Andy_JS said:

Here's a prediction for the future.

I wonder how long it'll be before second-hand bookshops become targets for woke-ists, because they're places where you can buy old copies of books that haven't been "updated" with the latest language. For example, if you want to buy a copy of a Roald Dahl book that definitely hasn't been altered, a second-hand bookshop will be the place to go.

I actually think the Roald Dahl bowdlerization will be dropped (when the owners think no one is looking) sooner rather than later. What I found telling was how few people on the Left even bothered to defend it. For once this really was a case of Wokeism/political correctness gone made.

The problem was more the naff way that the Dahl rewrite was done rather than the principle of it.

Works have long been altered to suit contemporary mores. The term "bowdlerisation" originates from the early 19th century editing of a version of Shakespeare to edit out the naughty bits. The schools edition of The Canterbury Tales I did for O level in the 1980s too. Agatha Christies "Ten little redacteds" has long been renamed as ""Then there were None" etc. Dahl himself changed the origin story of the Oompa Loompas.

Updating these works to modern tastes isn't itself a problem, but it does need to be done in tune with the authors style. There may be some right wing culture warriors gleefully reading to their children "Tintin in the Congo" *, but I don't thinknthat the worst thing that they will do to their children.

*as a TinTin fan, I do have a copy, and my boys have read it. We had an interesting discussion about colonialism and racist stereotypes as a result, but they were teenagers by then, and up to that sort of analysis while retaining their love of Tintin.

Really good post.

Not often I agree with you but this is well reasoned and well put.

I recently watched the Germans episode of Fawlty Towers again and it made me cringe. It's not the parts with the Germans, which can be covered by the 'fact' that Basil was concussed, and which remain very funny.

It's the Major's remarks about w*gs and ni*gers which really aren't on in this day and age.

I had a similar thing when I decided to watch some of Ronnie Corbett's soliloquy sketches and discovered that they are really homophobic. Not in a funny way. Just vile.

I know the Daily Malicious loves to wind everyone up about such things but sometimes we really do need to move things along.

What really shocked me about the remake of the Dambusters was the way in which it was [edit] fericiously attacked by those woke-hunters who were only worried about the name of one dog. Yet the original dog's name would be a total wtf to anyone of the younger generation who would have been wondering what those people were like to call dogs that name. So, just for a little bit of woke-baiting, the attempt to bring the heroism and, it should be remembered, self-sacrifice of the crews to a modern audience was completely derailed.

The worst bowdlerisation is when they remove the scene showing the drowning foreign slave workers.

Any honest portrayal of war should show that innocents do suffer, even when the cause is just.

Oh, was that the remake or when they show the original 1950s film?

The remake was pointless as so.often is the case and is almost always never as
good.

turbotubbs said:

On the dogs name, I am conflicted. It’s a historical fact, and the film is based on history.

I wonder what migrants housed at Scampton will make of the "Dambusters' dog memorial" there

twistedfirestopper3 said:

I'm off to town imminently to get a battery powered radio to put in my apocalypse survival bag for next time!

What you really want it one of those wind up ones

Carnyx said:

Scott_xP said:

turbotubbs said:

On the dogs name, I am conflicted. It’s a historical fact, and the film is based on history.

I wonder what migrants housed at Scampton will make of the "Dambusters' dog memorial" there

Hadn't thought of that. But only plans so far, though, and we all know how HO plans often lapse when the local Tory MPs complain.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/29/asylum-seekers-housed-portakabins-maybe-ships-robert-jenrick

"Edward Leigh, the Conservative MP whose Gainsborough constituency contains RAF Scampton, which was the base for the Dambusters bomber squadron in the second world war, said the council would seek an injunction to stop it being used and that he supported it."

You'd have to have a heart of stone not to laugh, wouldn't you?

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Scott_xP said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

I'm off to town imminently to get a battery powered radio to put in my apocalypse survival bag for next time!

What you really want it one of those wind up ones

I was thinking of that, but realistically, how long will we have radio if it all really does go tits up? One we're on The Road, scavenging for food and fighting off the neighbours, do I really want to be carrying a wind up thing? I'll just carry a small radio and guard the batteries like they're the future of mankind.

I keep meaning to read that.

turbotubbs said:

Sean_F said:

Carnyx said:

Heathener said:

Foxy said:

Stark_Dawning said:

Andy_JS said:

Here's a prediction for the future.

I wonder how long it'll be before second-hand bookshops become targets for woke-ists, because they're places where you can buy old copies of books that haven't been "updated" with the latest language. For example, if you want to buy a copy of a Roald Dahl book that definitely hasn't been altered, a second-hand bookshop will be the place to go.

I actually think the Roald Dahl bowdlerization will be dropped (when the owners think no one is looking) sooner rather than later. What I found telling was how few people on the Left even bothered to defend it. For once this really was a case of Wokeism/political correctness gone made.

The problem was more the naff way that the Dahl rewrite was done rather than the principle of it.

Works have long been altered to suit contemporary mores. The term "bowdlerisation" originates from the early 19th century editing of a version of Shakespeare to edit out the naughty bits. The schools edition of The Canterbury Tales I did for O level in the 1980s too. Agatha Christies "Ten little redacteds" has long been renamed as ""Then there were None" etc. Dahl himself changed the origin story of the Oompa Loompas.

Updating these works to modern tastes isn't itself a problem, but it does need to be done in tune with the authors style. There may be some right wing culture warriors gleefully reading to their children "Tintin in the Congo" *, but I don't thinknthat the worst thing that they will do to their children.

*as a TinTin fan, I do have a copy, and my boys have read it. We had an interesting discussion about colonialism and racist stereotypes as a result, but they were teenagers by then, and up to that sort of analysis while retaining their love of Tintin.

Really good post.

Not often I agree with you but this is well reasoned and well put.

I recently watched the Germans episode of Fawlty Towers again and it made me cringe. It's not the parts with the Germans, which can be covered by the 'fact' that Basil was concussed, and which remain very funny.

It's the Major's remarks about w*gs and ni*gers which really aren't on in this day and age.

I had a similar thing when I decided to watch some of Ronnie Corbett's soliloquy sketches and discovered that they are really homophobic. Not in a funny way. Just vile.

I know the Daily Malicious loves to wind everyone up about such things but sometimes we really do need to move things along.

What really shocked me about the remake of the Dambusters was the way in which it was [edit] fericiously attacked by those woke-hunters who were only worried about the name of one dog. Yet the original dog's name would be a total wtf to anyone of the younger generation who would have been wondering what those people were like to call dogs that name. So, just for a little bit of woke-baiting, the attempt to bring the heroism and, it should be remembered, self-sacrifice of the crews to a modern audience was completely derailed.

The worst bowdlerisation is when they remove the scene showing the drowning foreign slave workers.

Any honest portrayal of war should show that innocents do suffer, even when the cause is just.

And also showing why we fought in the first place. On the dogs name, I am conflicted. It’s a historical fact, and the film is based on history. It’s not, however, a documentary, any more than the Longest Day was, or Saving Private Ryan, or Band of Brothers. So actually, calling him Bob or whatever doesn’t amount to much, but avoids unnecessary questions.
There is an issue with what happens to older TV programmes. If you recoil from Fawlty Towers ‘The Germans’ because of the Major, you are somewhat falling into the Alf Garnett trap. We are mocking the Major for his antiquated views. Yet the scene with the doctor is arguably far far worse. I get that Fawlty is concussed but his reaction is incredible.

We should cut people slack for creating art in the accepted norms of the time. Otherwise we will have no art left at all.

On the dog's name, the answer is simple. Remake the film without the sodding dog. Are there any other films where a character's pet takes up so much of the narrative, or any? There's Sid's horse-picking budgie in Carry On At Your Convenience, I suppose.

ydoethur said:

Stocky said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

MarqueeMark said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Clever.

A Labour government would freeze council tax, Sir Keir Starmer is expected to say on Thursday as he tries to cast himself as the candidate of low tax for workers.

As he launches Labour’s local elections campaign in Swindon, Starmer will say that if he were prime minister, council tax bills would stay at the same level rather than rising as they will do this weekend. Labour would fund this with a “proper” windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas companies.

Starmer argues that voters have a clear “choice” on tax, contrasting his wish to freeze council tax with the scrapping of the tax-free lifetime allowance limit for wealthy pensioners announced by Jeremy Hunt in the budget a fortnight ago.

In a speech to party supporters, Starmer is expected to say: “There is a choice on tax. A Tory choice — taxes up for working people, tax cuts for the 1 per cent — or a Labour choice, where we cut business rates to save our high streets and where, if there was a Labour government, you could take that council tax rise you just got and rip it up.

“A Labour government would freeze your council tax this year — that’s our choice. A tax cut for the many, not just for the top 1 per cent. So take this message to every doorstep in your community: Labour is the party of lower taxes for working people.”

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/keir-starmer-speech-labour-to-freeze-council-tax-63h9rpvcq

"Labour would fund this with a “proper” windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas companies."

Thereby buggering up your pensions. Not so clever.

Labour really do still think the profits of BP and Shell go to four or five massively rich people. Instead of being paid out in dividends to pension funds. They are still not to be trusted when it comes to money.

Tory excess profit levies good; Labour windfall taxes bad. Is that it?

Different names for the same thing, surely?

We raise a levy on excess profits; you impose windfall taxes; he's an embezzler.

Interesting that its the same batch of posters who said a windfall tax would not raise any money last year, and it was a terrible socialist idea, who are equally loudly against the latest calls from Labour now. Not sure I have heard any of them, even quietly, complain about the Conservative party u-turning and introducing a windfall tax. It is almost as if it is the colour of the rosette that it is more important than the policy.

FWIW I think last years, proposed by the LDs, then copied by Labour and eventually by the Tories was appropriate and sensible but not at all convinced it would be the right time to extend it.

OnlyLivingBoy said:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/mar/30/britons-more-confidence-in-eu-than-westminster-poll-brexit

UK public now have more faith in the EU than in the British government or Westminster Parliament.

Hilarious that within a couple of years of "taking back control" we have more trust in the EU than in Westminster

Nigelb said:

DavidL said:

RochdalePioneers said:

DavidL said:

Sean_F said:

Leon said:

Emerald said:

The great Humza Yousaf

After having an affair Yousef blamed his wife for not being a good enough Muslim. When there was no place at a nursery for his daughter, he arranged a sting operation that attempted to prove that the nursery was racist. "What sort of person does this?"

https://twitter.com/HousewifePolish/status/1641034656165289987?s=20

He might actually be worse than Truss

Agent Yousaf will be great for the pro-Union cause.

But not so great for a Scotland already groaning from years of mismanagement, procrastination and gimmicks instead of solutions.

Having lived most of my life in England it is no different down there. Different mismanagement and gimmicks. Our problem isn't that the SNP have won the last 4 elections. Our problem is much wider than that.

Labour will win the General Election having rightly identified what is wrong with the country and rightly pinned the blame on the Tories. But they won't be able to fix any of those issues because they are structural and modern politics only allows for gimmicks. Same with whomever eventually replaces the SNP in Holyrood.

Is it being so cheerful that keeps you going?

I actually agree. Modern governments have remarkably small windows for action and otherwise get dragged along by international bureaucracies and unaccountable administrations. They therefore shout loud about the few things that they can actually change trying to make themselves sound relevant and significant.

I think that's nonsense, though.

At various times in the last two decades it would have been possible to make decisions much earlier on (for example) nuclear; tidal energy; HS2; house building; etc, which would likely have continued well beyond the lifetime of any particular government.

Instead, procrastination and gimmicks.

Here is the problem - weaponised ignorance. Historically most voters don't know how stuff works. They trust that the government knows and vote for a choice of programme - whichever your political choice you knew that all of them had the interests of the country at heart.

In the 1970s we had the battle of shit. Communist unions trying to destroy the system, mendaciously incompetent industrial leaders trying to destroy their own companies. Now we had a battle of systems going on, where each side no longer trusted the other side to have the interests of the country at heart. After a few periods of relative truce we are back there, worse than ever.

We can't make any decisions that last longer than the current parliament because the other lot are traitors / crooks who can't be trusted. So we end up with crayon solutions and "keep changing it" infrastructure projects which largely don't get built or end up hugely over budget due to meddling.

Unless we reach a national consensus about our future direction, this is the best we can hope for. Voters who are as clueless as ever about how stuff works who have had their ignorance weaponised by the elite. You can't expect voters to make choices on things like migration because their understanding of the subject is both small and corrupted. Or on windfall taxes. Or on a host of other things - Yousless has fixed the Scottish transport mess by abolishing the cabinet post.

We're only one step away from wrapping their ignorance and our decline up into "aren't we the greatest country on earth" propaganda. And then we truly are lost, like the US.

Nigelb said:

DavidL said:

RochdalePioneers said:

DavidL said:

Sean_F said:

Leon said:

Emerald said:

The great Humza Yousaf

After having an affair Yousef blamed his wife for not being a good enough Muslim. When there was no place at a nursery for his daughter, he arranged a sting operation that attempted to prove that the nursery was racist. "What sort of person does this?"

https://twitter.com/HousewifePolish/status/1641034656165289987?s=20

He might actually be worse than Truss

Agent Yousaf will be great for the pro-Union cause.

But not so great for a Scotland already groaning from years of mismanagement, procrastination and gimmicks instead of solutions.

Having lived most of my life in England it is no different down there. Different mismanagement and gimmicks. Our problem isn't that the SNP have won the last 4 elections. Our problem is much wider than that.

Labour will win the General Election having rightly identified what is wrong with the country and rightly pinned the blame on the Tories. But they won't be able to fix any of those issues because they are structural and modern politics only allows for gimmicks. Same with whomever eventually replaces the SNP in Holyrood.

Is it being so cheerful that keeps you going?

I actually agree. Modern governments have remarkably small windows for action and otherwise get dragged along by international bureaucracies and unaccountable administrations. They therefore shout loud about the few things that they can actually change trying to make themselves sound relevant and significant.

I think that's nonsense, though.

At various times in the last two decades it would have been possible to make decisions much earlier on (for example) nuclear; tidal energy; HS2; house building; etc, which would likely have continued well beyond the lifetime of any particular government.

Instead, procrastination and gimmicks.

For me, a classic was the rejection of building new nuclear power stations at the start of coalition. On the grounds that it would take until 2024 for them to start operation, even if built at unusual speed…

Stocky said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Scott_xP said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

I'm off to town imminently to get a battery powered radio to put in my apocalypse survival bag for next time!

What you really want it one of those wind up ones

I was thinking of that, but realistically, how long will we have radio if it all really does go tits up? One we're on The Road, scavenging for food and fighting off the neighbours, do I really want to be carrying a wind up thing? I'll just carry a small radio and guard the batteries like they're the future of mankind.

I keep meaning to read that.

I was reading it years ago and left it on a train, it was bleak so never bothered replacing it.

RochdalePioneers said:

We're only one step away from wrapping their ignorance and our decline up into "aren't we the greatest country on earth" propaganda. And then we truly are lost, like the US.

The Brexit campaign waves hello...

This thread has had its gravestone removed.

turbotubbs said:

Sean_F said:

Carnyx said:

Heathener said:

Foxy said:

Stark_Dawning said:

Andy_JS said:

Here's a prediction for the future.

I wonder how long it'll be before second-hand bookshops become targets for woke-ists, because they're places where you can buy old copies of books that haven't been "updated" with the latest language. For example, if you want to buy a copy of a Roald Dahl book that definitely hasn't been altered, a second-hand bookshop will be the place to go.

I actually think the Roald Dahl bowdlerization will be dropped (when the owners think no one is looking) sooner rather than later. What I found telling was how few people on the Left even bothered to defend it. For once this really was a case of Wokeism/political correctness gone made.

The problem was more the naff way that the Dahl rewrite was done rather than the principle of it.

Works have long been altered to suit contemporary mores. The term "bowdlerisation" originates from the early 19th century editing of a version of Shakespeare to edit out the naughty bits. The schools edition of The Canterbury Tales I did for O level in the 1980s too. Agatha Christies "Ten little redacteds" has long been renamed as ""Then there were None" etc. Dahl himself changed the origin story of the Oompa Loompas.

Updating these works to modern tastes isn't itself a problem, but it does need to be done in tune with the authors style. There may be some right wing culture warriors gleefully reading to their children "Tintin in the Congo" *, but I don't thinknthat the worst thing that they will do to their children.

*as a TinTin fan, I do have a copy, and my boys have read it. We had an interesting discussion about colonialism and racist stereotypes as a result, but they were teenagers by then, and up to that sort of analysis while retaining their love of Tintin.

Really good post.

Not often I agree with you but this is well reasoned and well put.

I recently watched the Germans episode of Fawlty Towers again and it made me cringe. It's not the parts with the Germans, which can be covered by the 'fact' that Basil was concussed, and which remain very funny.

It's the Major's remarks about w*gs and ni*gers which really aren't on in this day and age.

I had a similar thing when I decided to watch some of Ronnie Corbett's soliloquy sketches and discovered that they are really homophobic. Not in a funny way. Just vile.

I know the Daily Malicious loves to wind everyone up about such things but sometimes we really do need to move things along.

What really shocked me about the remake of the Dambusters was the way in which it was [edit] fericiously attacked by those woke-hunters who were only worried about the name of one dog. Yet the original dog's name would be a total wtf to anyone of the younger generation who would have been wondering what those people were like to call dogs that name. So, just for a little bit of woke-baiting, the attempt to bring the heroism and, it should be remembered, self-sacrifice of the crews to a modern audience was completely derailed.

The worst bowdlerisation is when they remove the scene showing the drowning foreign slave workers.

Any honest portrayal of war should show that innocents do suffer, even when the cause is just.

And also showing why we fought in the first place. On the dogs name, I am conflicted. It’s a historical fact, and the film is based on history. It’s not, however, a documentary, any more than the Longest Day was, or Saving Private Ryan, or Band of Brothers. So actually, calling him Bob or whatever doesn’t amount to much, but avoids unnecessary questions.
There is an issue with what happens to older TV programmes. If you recoil from Fawlty Towers ‘The Germans’ because of the Major, you are somewhat falling into the Alf Garnett trap. We are mocking the Major for his antiquated views. Yet the scene with the doctor is arguably far far worse. I get that Fawlty is concussed but his reaction is incredible.

We should cut people slack for creating art in the accepted norms of the time. Otherwise we will have no art left at all.

I have liked but I would rather keep the dog's name in with just a comment before the film starts. Alf Garnett is an interesting one. People do seem to miss that he is being made fun of because of his views. We shouldn't edit out racism, sexism, etc as if it didn't exist or that acknowledging times were different.

NickPalmer said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

MarqueeMark said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Clever.

A Labour government would freeze council tax, Sir Keir Starmer is expected to say on Thursday as he tries to cast himself as the candidate of low tax for workers.

As he launches Labour’s local elections campaign in Swindon, Starmer will say that if he were prime minister, council tax bills would stay at the same level rather than rising as they will do this weekend. Labour would fund this with a “proper” windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas companies.

Starmer argues that voters have a clear “choice” on tax, contrasting his wish to freeze council tax with the scrapping of the tax-free lifetime allowance limit for wealthy pensioners announced by Jeremy Hunt in the budget a fortnight ago.

In a speech to party supporters, Starmer is expected to say: “There is a choice on tax. A Tory choice — taxes up for working people, tax cuts for the 1 per cent — or a Labour choice, where we cut business rates to save our high streets and where, if there was a Labour government, you could take that council tax rise you just got and rip it up.

“A Labour government would freeze your council tax this year — that’s our choice. A tax cut for the many, not just for the top 1 per cent. So take this message to every doorstep in your community: Labour is the party of lower taxes for working people.”

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/keir-starmer-speech-labour-to-freeze-council-tax-63h9rpvcq

"Labour would fund this with a “proper” windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas companies."

Thereby buggering up your pensions. Not so clever.

Labour really do still think the profits of BP and Shell go to four or five massively rich people. Instead of being paid out in dividends to pension funds. They are still not to be trusted when it comes to money.

Tory excess profit levies good; Labour windfall taxes bad. Is that it?

The pension fund thing is such a feeble response. Even if you haven't chosen to have an environmentally-focused pension fund (in which case the impact on you is zero), what's the typical share of oil and gas investments? 10% max? Say the windfall tax reduces their profit by 25% for one year. The impact on your pension fund in this extreme case is 2.5%, marginally affecting your pension N years in the future.

The problem with the proposed windfall tax is that it is deliberately trying to confuse an already clueless public. BP are not making windfall taxes from the UK. Shell are not coining it in from North Sea exploration. Their profits - excess or otherwise - are made from non-UK operations.

Politically it is very clever - you are suffering high energy bills, they are profiteering, lets tax them. The only problem is that it isn't true. It is politics by crayon, as stupid as the illegal Illegal Migration bill.

We will have a Labour government and it will be less mendacious and corrupt than the Tories. Both good things. But we need government policy which is actually strategic and thought through. Not more crayons.