Re the Anglo-Saxons, if we can’t call them “Anglo-Saxons” then what do we call the Germanic invaders who took over the country in the 4th-6th century, displacing Romano-Brits and Celts?
Coz that definitely happened. We can see from place-name evidence. Everywhere
Crikey, yes. Yet again some guy posting on a discussion site completely outwits the academic establishment by spotting something all the eggheads had missed. There'll be some red faces in our universities today. Thank heaven for the Internet.
I’m actually not disputing the Woke academics here on the term (I’ve always felt “Anglo-Saxon” is slightly clumsy). I’m saying the ARGUMENT is a Woke irrelevance. In the 4th-6th century a bunch of Germanic types with a new culture and language came over to Britain and altered our gene pool and changed all the place names. That indisputably happened (you can call it an invasion or not, that’s not my point)
These people need a name. If it can’t be Anglo-Saxon then what will that name be?
As I say, only “early English” is short and pithy enough to work but that will just get the lefties even angrier
The crux of the issue, when not misrepresented by ignorant commentators, is whether the label refers to a distinct ethnic group. It does not, despite the beliefs of some who would rather it did. The reason why they would rather it did fits into the reason for it being a relevant question. Those who would seek to build their politics on a pillar of racial purity or superiority have a fatal flaw in the foundations of their ideology.
Sadly these people still exist and their reaction is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
I think that a group of people that one can call Anglo-Saxons, or English, had become a distinct ethnic group, by the middle of the 10th century, and I see nothing in the Reddit article that conflicts with that.
That's very different from saying that these people formed the basis of some kind of pure or superior race.
The same way I'd say that Germans existed at this time. They just weren't the kind of people that 19th Century German nationalists thought they were.
And do you have any evidence for this distinct ethnicity? It doesn't seem very likely to me, given the continued cultural and linguistic diversity even within England, and what we know of extant genetic differences today. There were and still are many Englands within the borders of England. The wider you cast your net to catch of England, the more readily you will scoop up that which is not and never has been England. Do you think Cumbrians were closer to Sussex folk or to people from Strathclyde? How much did the people of Whitby have in common with Oksbøl versus Oxford?
I have serious doubts about whether you could ever draw a genetic line around England and only England at any point in all of England's history.
And if given the above is true, what use could there be for persisting with the myth if not to make political mischief today? In whose interest is it to link a nation to a fictional genetic stock, other than those whose ideology is filtration and exclusion?
A Royal House whose kings called themselves Kings of England. England would be conquered in the future, but England never ceased to exist as an entity, after 960. They had a common language, a common literature, a common religion, and a common enemy.
These are what create an ethnic group. Claiming that the Anglo-Saxons did not exist as an ethnic group is like claiming that Poles, Germans, Ukrainians etc. did not.
Much of what you claim here can be disputed, though. Caxton's dilemma when choosing how to translate works he intended to print in "English" illustrates the linguistic point:
And he asked specifically for eggs, and the good woman said that she spoke no French, and the merchant got angry for he could not speak French either, but he wanted eggs and she could not understand him. And then at last another person said that he wanted ‘eyren’. Then the good woman said that she understood him well.
That is, people from the opposite ends of England often literally could not understand one another, to the extent that one of them thought the other was speaking an entirely different language! And this is from the year 1490. 1490!
The heterogeneity of England in pre-modern times is consistently underestimated, and by the time it really settles down into something that one can really start to sensibly call one ethnic group, you're already way beyond the point where England was its own thing. What of Wales, by the time Caxton was writing?
As for the common enemy... whom? When? Even when the Normans invaded, there wasn't unity, even between midlands and the south. If there had have been, the invasion might have been repelled.
The common enemy were the Danes and the Norse. The House of Wessex/England spent 150 years fighting them. As we're seeing in Ukraine, nothing does more to create a shared sense of identity than military service against an enemy attacking one's homeland.
What's the evidence for this English unity against the Norse? The Norse occupied much of England at the time of Alfred, and when Alfred stemmed the invasion of Wessex the settlement left the likes of Guthrum in power in other parts of England. Alfred was comfortable accommodating Norse rule in other parts of England as long as the Norse leadership converted to Christianity. Was there a popular clamour against this, anywhere? Did the Norse settlers in the north and east of England want a unified England? Did anybody outside the court of Wessex really care about that kind of nation building?
The Court of Wessex and the clergy who served them loyally were the people who mattered. Within 50 years after Alfred's death, they'd unified it all (other than a brief attempt by Eric Bloodaxe to regain York). The Heptarchy was gone for ever. Nobody was interested in reviving Northumbria, East Anglia, Kent, Mercia as separate kingdoms.
As ever, the headline doesn't reflect the reality of the story:
He added: “I’m not trying to create any scaremongering, and I want to emphasise that not all 6,000 multi-storey car parks across the UK have to be closed.
“It’s only the very old ones, built in the 60s and 70s, which are in a very poor state of repair and have weakened over time which will probably need to have some work done to them.
Basically the title should be "Heavy cars too heavy for old multi-story car parks".
The Viking invasions were probably the moment the English began to feel REALLY English. A people
There’s nothing like being attacked to make you the victims band together, and bond into a team
Indeed. I'd say most nations begin this way.
Look at what is happening in Ukraine right now. Before Putin's Special Clusterfuck, the Ukes were a bit nebulous, half Russian, half Polish, half hmmm (Putin actually had a historical point, tho it does not begin to justify his hideous war)
Now, the Ukrainians are ABSOLUTELY a nation. They are the people who got attacked by Russia. They will be the people that endured that horrible war (inshallah). "Ukrainian-ness" will be off the dial by the end of all this
Putin will achieve the complete opposite of what he intended
I agree with the general point, but roots of their cultural identity go back much longer than you suggest. The 'half Russian, half Polish" bit describes only the ruling elites over the course of the last few centuries.
Ukrainian history and culture is multi faceted but it is pretty long established. You can trace a distinct Ukrainian identity for a good 1000 years. So this idea that Ukrainians are a rather nebulous group is a bit of a false narrative- it depends who you talked to. Both Russians in the north and Ukrainians in the south looked to Kievan Rus as their proto-state, but from the Mongol invasion onward, the Southern identity became and remained separate from the North and after Moscow took control in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century there was a distinct linguistic and cultural divide.
What has happened is the total rejection of anything Russian, even things- like Pushkin- that were previously respected. With Ukraine, Russia is an Empire, without it, it has "yet to find a role" and is derided as a bunch of loathsome barbarians who couldn´t even do pillaging right.
You're correct about the much longer history.
Leon was not wrong, though, to point out what's now Ukraine was variously partitioned between the Russian, Polish Lithuanian, and Austria Hungarian empires over the course of several centuries. And the idea of the modern nation state has its roots only in the nineteenth century.
The first real attempt at building a Ukrainian nation state in the modern sense - quickly crushed - was in the aftermath of WWI. And then Stalin, and Holodomor, and Hitler. And Stalin again.
Ukraine was a fairly cohesive nation after the Maidan revolution. All Putin has done is guarantee it will never go back.
The idea of any modern nation state is almost always a nineteenth century invention. However, whereas the Czechs or the Estonians were able to achieve a nation state in 1918, as you say the charnel house of the USSR delayed the creation of a genuinely independent Ukrainian nation state until 1991. I´d say they were catching up on nation building astonishingly rapidly.
It also poses the question of whether the 19thC nation state is one we should never rethink. Contrary to the PB truism of there being no democracy without a demos, the very genesis of Ukraine's current nation state is democracy itself. What sort of demos can states really claim without democracy ?
Nationalism, and movement towards democracy, if not full democracy, go hand in hand I think. I'd say that the French Revolution gave rise to nationalism as we would understand it today.
Mary Beard in a recent episode of the podcast Empire argued that the rise of democracy was often associated with a iniquitous division of society into those that matter and those that don't. I'm not certain exactly how this fits with your claim, but the details are left to the reader.
I'm supremely uninterested and lack details - but why the furore? He's had an affair at work. Is that it?
I think it says a lot about the shifting sands of our culture. Would anyone have even regarded what he did as “an affair” 20 years ago?
It's bullshit though - the sands haven't really shifted. Jeez, I'd have been sacked loads of times. How many people have found their spouse's via work, often while with a former partner? The puritanism of some astonishes me.
Yup. I'm married to my former manageress, with whom I had a fling at work!
As far as I can see, Schofield has done nothing illegal, so all the rest is mere value judgements based on a media circus generated by organisations that love talking about nothing but themselves.
He is one of millions of people who have met a partner at work and while the extreme junior-senior element was perhaps distasteful to some I don't see why this story is commanding so much attention.
He's left. He's gone. So presumably that's it?
It does seem like, unless there was illegality afoot, Schofield should now be left alone.
Or are the febrile media looking for a Caroline Flack redux?
Because it’s been decided that the star ‘talent’, in his 50s, f…ing the 18-year-old intern, is no longer acceptable.
Both men were over the age of consent weren’t they? What’s the point of having that law otherwise?
A sixth form girl inflagrante with her teacher would also be a case of two people being over the age of consent, but it wouldn't stop the teacher getting banged up.
I just don't believe hounding Schofield is the way forward. If he has broken the law, that is for law enforcement to determine, if he hasn't leave him alone.
As ever, the headline doesn't reflect the reality of the story:
He added: “I’m not trying to create any scaremongering, and I want to emphasise that not all 6,000 multi-storey car parks across the UK have to be closed.
“It’s only the very old ones, built in the 60s and 70s, which are in a very poor state of repair and have we
The much more interesting question is why is there this sudden splurge of hate for electric cars?
As ever, the headline doesn't reflect the reality of the story:
He added: “I’m not trying to create any scaremongering, and I want to emphasise that not all 6,000 multi-storey car parks across the UK have to be closed.
“It’s only the very old ones, built in the 60s and 70s, which are in a very poor state of repair and have we
The much more interesting question is why is there this sudden splurge of hate for electric cars?
And why is it so pessimistic? Sure, there may be some problems in the transition from internal combustion engines, but they aren't beyond the wit of humanity to solve.
Re the Anglo-Saxons, if we can’t call them “Anglo-Saxons” then what do we call the Germanic invaders who took over the country in the 4th-6th century, displacing Romano-Brits and Celts?
Coz that definitely happened. We can see from place-name evidence. Everywhere
Crikey, yes. Yet again some guy posting on a discussion site completely outwits the academic establishment by spotting something all the eggheads had missed. There'll be some red faces in our universities today. Thank heaven for the Internet.
I’m actually not disputing the Woke academics here on the term (I’ve always felt “Anglo-Saxon” is slightly clumsy). I’m saying the ARGUMENT is a Woke irrelevance. In the 4th-6th century a bunch of Germanic types with a new culture and language came over to Britain and altered our gene pool and changed all the place names. That indisputably happened (you can call it an invasion or not, that’s not my point)
These people need a name. If it can’t be Anglo-Saxon then what will that name be?
As I say, only “early English” is short and pithy enough to work but that will just get the lefties even angrier
The crux of the issue, when not misrepresented by ignorant commentators, is whether the label refers to a distinct ethnic group. It does not, despite the beliefs of some who would rather it did. The reason why they would rather it did fits into the reason for it being a relevant question. Those who would seek to build their politics on a pillar of racial purity or superiority have a fatal flaw in the foundations of their ideology.
Sadly these people still exist and their reaction is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
I think that a group of people that one can call Anglo-Saxons, or English, had become a distinct ethnic group, by the middle of the 10th century, and I see nothing in the Reddit article that conflicts with that.
That's very different from saying that these people formed the basis of some kind of pure or superior race.
The same way I'd say that Germans existed at this time. They just weren't the kind of people that 19th Century German nationalists thought they were.
And do you have any evidence for this distinct ethnicity? It doesn't seem very likely to me, given the continued cultural and linguistic diversity even within England, and what we know of extant genetic differences today. There were and still are many Englands within the borders of England. The wider you cast your net to catch of England, the more readily you will scoop up that which is not and never has been England. Do you think Cumbrians were closer to Sussex folk or to people from Strathclyde? How much did the people of Whitby have in common with Oksbøl versus Oxford?
I have serious doubts about whether you could ever draw a genetic line around England and only England at any point in all of England's history.
And if given the above is true, what use could there be for persisting with the myth if not to make political mischief today? In whose interest is it to link a nation to a fictional genetic stock, other than those whose ideology is filtration and exclusion?
A Royal House whose kings called themselves Kings of England. England would be conquered in the future, but England never ceased to exist as an entity, after 960. They had a common language, a common literature, a common religion, and a common enemy.
These are what create an ethnic group. Claiming that the Anglo-Saxons did not exist as an ethnic group is like claiming that Poles, Germans, Ukrainians etc. did not.
Much of what you claim here can be disputed, though. Caxton's dilemma when choosing how to translate works he intended to print in "English" illustrates the linguistic point:
And he asked specifically for eggs, and the good woman said that she spoke no French, and the merchant got angry for he could not speak French either, but he wanted eggs and she could not understand him. And then at last another person said that he wanted ‘eyren’. Then the good woman said that she understood him well.
That is, people from the opposite ends of England often literally could not understand one another, to the extent that one of them thought the other was speaking an entirely different language! And this is from the year 1490. 1490!
The heterogeneity of England in pre-modern times is consistently underestimated, and by the time it really settles down into something that one can really start to sensibly call one ethnic group, you're already way beyond the point where England was its own thing. What of Wales, by the time Caxton was writing?
As for the common enemy... whom? When? Even when the Normans invaded, there wasn't unity, even between midlands and the south. If there had have been, the invasion might have been repelled.
The common enemy were the Danes and the Norse. The House of Wessex/England spent 150 years fighting them. As we're seeing in Ukraine, nothing does more to create a shared sense of identity than military service against an enemy attacking one's homeland.
What's the evidence for this English unity against the Norse? The Norse occupied much of England at the time of Alfred, and when Alfred stemmed the invasion of Wessex the settlement left the likes of Guthrum in power in other parts of England. Alfred was comfortable accommodating Norse rule in other parts of England as long as the Norse leadership converted to Christianity. Was there a popular clamour against this, anywhere? Did the Norse settlers in the north and east of England want a unified England? Did anybody outside the court of Wessex really care about that kind of nation building?
Farooq c. 2100: "What's the evidence for this Ukrainian unity against the Russians? The Russians occupied much of Ukraine at the time of Zelensky, who was himself a native Russian speaker. Was there a popular clamour against this, anywhere? Did the Russian settlers in the south and east of Ukraine want a unified state? Did anybody outside the US-sponsored Kiev regime really care about that kind of nation building?"
Well no, because the written evidence of what ordinary Ukrainians think about Russia's fascist imperialism is a matter of record. If you think we have that kind of documentary evidence of what a peasant farmer outside St Edmundsbury or a miller in Jorvik thought about Norse or Wessex rule you're kidding yourself. We have scant and partial evidence from that time. It's hard to elevate the records kept in Winchester to a story of a nation united to throw off the Viking yoke. You need much better evidence than you have for that kind of claim.
As ever, the headline doesn't reflect the reality of the story:
He added: “I’m not trying to create any scaremongering, and I want to emphasise that not all 6,000 multi-storey car parks across the UK have to be closed.
“It’s only the very old ones, built in the 60s and 70s, which are in a very poor state of repair and have weakened over time which will probably need to have some work done to them.
Basically the title should be "Heavy cars too heavy for old multi-story car parks".
In the ‘60s and ‘70s, the average car weighed about 800kg In the 2010s, the average car weighed about 1600kg The average 2030s car might be over 2000kg.
Which could be a massive issue for the engineering calculations on those 1960s car parks, and a reminder both to the operators and regulators, that there’s a potential issue here.
The Viking invasions were probably the moment the English began to feel REALLY English. A people
There’s nothing like being attacked to make you the victims band together, and bond into a team
Indeed. I'd say most nations begin this way.
Look at what is happening in Ukraine right now. Before Putin's Special Clusterfuck, the Ukes were a bit nebulous, half Russian, half Polish, half hmmm (Putin actually had a historical point, tho it does not begin to justify his hideous war)
Now, the Ukrainians are ABSOLUTELY a nation. They are the people who got attacked by Russia. They will be the people that endured that horrible war (inshallah). "Ukrainian-ness" will be off the dial by the end of all this
Putin will achieve the complete opposite of what he intended
I agree with the general point, but roots of their cultural identity go back much longer than you suggest. The 'half Russian, half Polish" bit describes only the ruling elites over the course of the last few centuries.
Ukrainian history and culture is multi faceted but it is pretty long established. You can trace a distinct Ukrainian identity for a good 1000 years. So this idea that Ukrainians are a rather nebulous group is a bit of a false narrative- it depends who you talked to. Both Russians in the north and Ukrainians in the south looked to Kievan Rus as their proto-state, but from the Mongol invasion onward, the Southern identity became and remained separate from the North and after Moscow took control in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century there was a distinct linguistic and cultural divide.
What has happened is the total rejection of anything Russian, even things- like Pushkin- that were previously respected. With Ukraine, Russia is an Empire, without it, it has "yet to find a role" and is derided as a bunch of loathsome barbarians who couldn´t even do pillaging right.
You're correct about the much longer history.
Leon was not wrong, though, to point out what's now Ukraine was variously partitioned between the Russian, Polish Lithuanian, and Austria Hungarian empires over the course of several centuries. And the idea of the modern nation state has its roots only in the nineteenth century.
The first real attempt at building a Ukrainian nation state in the modern sense - quickly crushed - was in the aftermath of WWI. And then Stalin, and Holodomor, and Hitler. And Stalin again.
Ukraine was a fairly cohesive nation after the Maidan revolution. All Putin has done is guarantee it will never go back.
The idea of any modern nation state is almost always a nineteenth century invention. However, whereas the Czechs or the Estonians were able to achieve a nation state in 1918, as you say the charnel house of the USSR delayed the creation of a genuinely independent Ukrainian nation state until 1991. I´d say they were catching up on nation building astonishingly rapidly.
It also poses the question of whether the 19thC nation state is one we should never rethink. Contrary to the PB truism of there being no democracy without a demos, the very genesis of Ukraine's current nation state is democracy itself. What sort of demos can states really claim without democracy ?
Nationalism, and movement towards democracy, if not full democracy, go hand in hand I think. I'd say that the French Revolution gave rise to nationalism as we would understand it today.
Mary Beard in a recent episode of the podcast Empire argued that the rise of democracy was often associated with a iniquitous division of society into those that matter and those that don't. I'm not certain exactly how this fits with your claim, but the details are left to the reader.
The fate of minorities may indeed be more precarious under a democracy, as compared to an imperial system of government.
Re the Anglo-Saxons, if we can’t call them “Anglo-Saxons” then what do we call the Germanic invaders who took over the country in the 4th-6th century, displacing Romano-Brits and Celts?
Coz that definitely happened. We can see from place-name evidence. Everywhere
Crikey, yes. Yet again some guy posting on a discussion site completely outwits the academic establishment by spotting something all the eggheads had missed. There'll be some red faces in our universities today. Thank heaven for the Internet.
I’m actually not disputing the Woke academics here on the term (I’ve always felt “Anglo-Saxon” is slightly clumsy). I’m saying the ARGUMENT is a Woke irrelevance. In the 4th-6th century a bunch of Germanic types with a new culture and language came over to Britain and altered our gene pool and changed all the place names. That indisputably happened (you can call it an invasion or not, that’s not my point)
These people need a name. If it can’t be Anglo-Saxon then what will that name be?
As I say, only “early English” is short and pithy enough to work but that will just get the lefties even angrier
The crux of the issue, when not misrepresented by ignorant commentators, is whether the label refers to a distinct ethnic group. It does not, despite the beliefs of some who would rather it did. The reason why they would rather it did fits into the reason for it being a relevant question. Those who would seek to build their politics on a pillar of racial purity or superiority have a fatal flaw in the foundations of their ideology.
Sadly these people still exist and their reaction is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
I think that a group of people that one can call Anglo-Saxons, or English, had become a distinct ethnic group, by the middle of the 10th century, and I see nothing in the Reddit article that conflicts with that.
That's very different from saying that these people formed the basis of some kind of pure or superior race.
The same way I'd say that Germans existed at this time. They just weren't the kind of people that 19th Century German nationalists thought they were.
And do you have any evidence for this distinct ethnicity? It doesn't seem very likely to me, given the continued cultural and linguistic diversity even within England, and what we know of extant genetic differences today. There were and still are many Englands within the borders of England. The wider you cast your net to catch of England, the more readily you will scoop up that which is not and never has been England. Do you think Cumbrians were closer to Sussex folk or to people from Strathclyde? How much did the people of Whitby have in common with Oksbøl versus Oxford?
I have serious doubts about whether you could ever draw a genetic line around England and only England at any point in all of England's history.
And if given the above is true, what use could there be for persisting with the myth if not to make political mischief today? In whose interest is it to link a nation to a fictional genetic stock, other than those whose ideology is filtration and exclusion?
A Royal House whose kings called themselves Kings of England. England would be conquered in the future, but England never ceased to exist as an entity, after 960. They had a common language, a common literature, a common religion, and a common enemy.
These are what create an ethnic group. Claiming that the Anglo-Saxons did not exist as an ethnic group is like claiming that Poles, Germans, Ukrainians etc. did not.
Much of what you claim here can be disputed, though. Caxton's dilemma when choosing how to translate works he intended to print in "English" illustrates the linguistic point:
And he asked specifically for eggs, and the good woman said that she spoke no French, and the merchant got angry for he could not speak French either, but he wanted eggs and she could not understand him. And then at last another person said that he wanted ‘eyren’. Then the good woman said that she understood him well.
That is, people from the opposite ends of England often literally could not understand one another, to the extent that one of them thought the other was speaking an entirely different language! And this is from the year 1490. 1490!
The heterogeneity of England in pre-modern times is consistently underestimated, and by the time it really settles down into something that one can really start to sensibly call one ethnic group, you're already way beyond the point where England was its own thing. What of Wales, by the time Caxton was writing?
As for the common enemy... whom? When? Even when the Normans invaded, there wasn't unity, even between midlands and the south. If there had have been, the invasion might have been repelled.
The common enemy were the Danes and the Norse. The House of Wessex/England spent 150 years fighting them. As we're seeing in Ukraine, nothing does more to create a shared sense of identity than military service against an enemy attacking one's homeland.
What's the evidence for this English unity against the Norse? The Norse occupied much of England at the time of Alfred, and when Alfred stemmed the invasion of Wessex the settlement left the likes of Guthrum in power in other parts of England. Alfred was comfortable accommodating Norse rule in other parts of England as long as the Norse leadership converted to Christianity. Was there a popular clamour against this, anywhere? Did the Norse settlers in the north and east of England want a unified England? Did anybody outside the court of Wessex really care about that kind of nation building?
AIUi, Edmund, then King of East Anglia paid off the Great Heathen Army to go and spoil some other petty rulers land. It was only when he wouldn't pay them any more that they turned on him, made a martyr of him and he became Saint Edmund, of Bury Saint Edmunds fame! That was 866 or so.
Cars have generally - even before EVs - been getting larger and heavier.
The old Mini weighted less than 600kg; the new one is twice that (or maybe even a little more).
However, this is a problem that is easily solved. If a car park is deemed unable to deal with the weight of modern cars, you just mandate max capacity of 80% or whatever.
I'm supremely uninterested and lack details - but why the furore? He's had an affair at work. Is that it?
I think it says a lot about the shifting sands of our culture. Would anyone have even regarded what he did as “an affair” 20 years ago?
It's bullshit though - the sands haven't really shifted. Jeez, I'd have been sacked loads of times. How many people have found their spouse's via work, often while with a former partner? The puritanism of some astonishes me.
Yup. I'm married to my former manageress, with whom I had a fling at work!
As far as I can see, Schofield has done nothing illegal, so all the rest is mere value judgements based on a media circus generated by organisations that love talking about nothing but themselves.
He is one of millions of people who have met a partner at work and while the extreme junior-senior element was perhaps distasteful to some I don't see why this story is commanding so much attention.
He's left. He's gone. So presumably that's it?
It does seem like, unless there was illegality afoot, Schofield should now be left alone.
Or are the febrile media looking for a Caroline Flack redux?
Because it’s been decided that the star ‘talent’, in his 50s, f…ing the 18-year-old intern, is no longer acceptable.
Both men were over the age of consent weren’t they? What’s the point of having that law otherwise?
A sixth form girl inflagrante with her teacher would also be a case of two people being over the age of consent, but it wouldn't stop the teacher getting banged up.
I just don't believe hounding Schofield is the way forward. If he has broken the law, that is for law enforcement to determine, if he hasn't leave him alone.
The problem here appears to be that the fellow teacher, head of department, deputy head, head teacher, school board, and local education authority, all knew about the relationship, realised it was bad, and conspired to cover it up.
Re the Anglo-Saxons, if we can’t call them “Anglo-Saxons” then what do we call the Germanic invaders who took over the country in the 4th-6th century, displacing Romano-Brits and Celts?
Coz that definitely happened. We can see from place-name evidence. Everywhere
Crikey, yes. Yet again some guy posting on a discussion site completely outwits the academic establishment by spotting something all the eggheads had missed. There'll be some red faces in our universities today. Thank heaven for the Internet.
I’m actually not disputing the Woke academics here on the term (I’ve always felt “Anglo-Saxon” is slightly clumsy). I’m saying the ARGUMENT is a Woke irrelevance. In the 4th-6th century a bunch of Germanic types with a new culture and language came over to Britain and altered our gene pool and changed all the place names. That indisputably happened (you can call it an invasion or not, that’s not my point)
These people need a name. If it can’t be Anglo-Saxon then what will that name be?
As I say, only “early English” is short and pithy enough to work but that will just get the lefties even angrier
The crux of the issue, when not misrepresented by ignorant commentators, is whether the label refers to a distinct ethnic group. It does not, despite the beliefs of some who would rather it did. The reason why they would rather it did fits into the reason for it being a relevant question. Those who would seek to build their politics on a pillar of racial purity or superiority have a fatal flaw in the foundations of their ideology.
Sadly these people still exist and their reaction is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
I think that a group of people that one can call Anglo-Saxons, or English, had become a distinct ethnic group, by the middle of the 10th century, and I see nothing in the Reddit article that conflicts with that.
That's very different from saying that these people formed the basis of some kind of pure or superior race.
The same way I'd say that Germans existed at this time. They just weren't the kind of people that 19th Century German nationalists thought they were.
And do you have any evidence for this distinct ethnicity? It doesn't seem very likely to me, given the continued cultural and linguistic diversity even within England, and what we know of extant genetic differences today. There were and still are many Englands within the borders of England. The wider you cast your net to catch of England, the more readily you will scoop up that which is not and never has been England. Do you think Cumbrians were closer to Sussex folk or to people from Strathclyde? How much did the people of Whitby have in common with Oksbøl versus Oxford?
I have serious doubts about whether you could ever draw a genetic line around England and only England at any point in all of England's history.
And if given the above is true, what use could there be for persisting with the myth if not to make political mischief today? In whose interest is it to link a nation to a fictional genetic stock, other than those whose ideology is filtration and exclusion?
A Royal House whose kings called themselves Kings of England. England would be conquered in the future, but England never ceased to exist as an entity, after 960. They had a common language, a common literature, a common religion, and a common enemy.
These are what create an ethnic group. Claiming that the Anglo-Saxons did not exist as an ethnic group is like claiming that Poles, Germans, Ukrainians etc. did not.
Much of what you claim here can be disputed, though. Caxton's dilemma when choosing how to translate works he intended to print in "English" illustrates the linguistic point:
And he asked specifically for eggs, and the good woman said that she spoke no French, and the merchant got angry for he could not speak French either, but he wanted eggs and she could not understand him. And then at last another person said that he wanted ‘eyren’. Then the good woman said that she understood him well.
That is, people from the opposite ends of England often literally could not understand one another, to the extent that one of them thought the other was speaking an entirely different language! And this is from the year 1490. 1490!
The heterogeneity of England in pre-modern times is consistently underestimated, and by the time it really settles down into something that one can really start to sensibly call one ethnic group, you're already way beyond the point where England was its own thing. What of Wales, by the time Caxton was writing?
As for the common enemy... whom? When? Even when the Normans invaded, there wasn't unity, even between midlands and the south. If there had have been, the invasion might have been repelled.
The common enemy were the Danes and the Norse. The House of Wessex/England spent 150 years fighting them. As we're seeing in Ukraine, nothing does more to create a shared sense of identity than military service against an enemy attacking one's homeland.
What's the evidence for this English unity against the Norse? The Norse occupied much of England at the time of Alfred, and when Alfred stemmed the invasion of Wessex the settlement left the likes of Guthrum in power in other parts of England. Alfred was comfortable accommodating Norse rule in other parts of England as long as the Norse leadership converted to Christianity. Was there a popular clamour against this, anywhere? Did the Norse settlers in the north and east of England want a unified England? Did anybody outside the court of Wessex really care about that kind of nation building?
Farooq c. 2100: "What's the evidence for this Ukrainian unity against the Russians? The Russians occupied much of Ukraine at the time of Zelensky, who was himself a native Russian speaker. Was there a popular clamour against this, anywhere? Did the Russian settlers in the south and east of Ukraine want a unified state? Did anybody outside the US-sponsored Kiev regime really care about that kind of nation building?"
Well no, because the written evidence of what ordinary Ukrainians think about Russia's fascist imperialism is a matter of record. If you think we have that kind of documentary evidence of what a peasant farmer outside St Edmundsbury or a miller in Jorvik thought about Norse or Wessex rule you're kidding yourself. We have scant and partial evidence from that time. It's hard to elevate the records kept in Winchester to a story of a nation united to throw off the Viking yoke. You need much better evidence than you have for that kind of claim.
That's not what I was getting at but rather than you seem overly keen to dismiss any foundation for English national identity.
For an IT person, I'm someone who has been supremely unfused by a lot of elements of IT as an end user - here's another Windows laptop, here's Chrome, here's IE - OK, no bother, I can generally do my job 99% of the day with mind to keyboard as the limiting performance factor. Some websites do better on Chrome, some prefer Edge, Bing increasingly gives similar results as Google, which wasn't what happened on a few years ago. Firefox or a.n.other, why pose, just go with what is in front of you.
But Edge my word - nicey, nicey Corporate home pages are increasingly gone, the configurability has reduced and the force feeding of MSN aggregated horse shit is barely tolerable. I mean, you can get the same, marginally better quality, stuff from Chrome but it is more buried.
It's crept up on me, but I need to get away from it now.
I wonder how many are passively getting their worldview Mailified.
Re the Anglo-Saxons, if we can’t call them “Anglo-Saxons” then what do we call the Germanic invaders who took over the country in the 4th-6th century, displacing Romano-Brits and Celts?
Coz that definitely happened. We can see from place-name evidence. Everywhere
Crikey, yes. Yet again some guy posting on a discussion site completely outwits the academic establishment by spotting something all the eggheads had missed. There'll be some red faces in our universities today. Thank heaven for the Internet.
I’m actually not disputing the Woke academics here on the term (I’ve always felt “Anglo-Saxon” is slightly clumsy). I’m saying the ARGUMENT is a Woke irrelevance. In the 4th-6th century a bunch of Germanic types with a new culture and language came over to Britain and altered our gene pool and changed all the place names. That indisputably happened (you can call it an invasion or not, that’s not my point)
These people need a name. If it can’t be Anglo-Saxon then what will that name be?
As I say, only “early English” is short and pithy enough to work but that will just get the lefties even angrier
The crux of the issue, when not misrepresented by ignorant commentators, is whether the label refers to a distinct ethnic group. It does not, despite the beliefs of some who would rather it did. The reason why they would rather it did fits into the reason for it being a relevant question. Those who would seek to build their politics on a pillar of racial purity or superiority have a fatal flaw in the foundations of their ideology.
Sadly these people still exist and their reaction is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
I think that a group of people that one can call Anglo-Saxons, or English, had become a distinct ethnic group, by the middle of the 10th century, and I see nothing in the Reddit article that conflicts with that.
That's very different from saying that these people formed the basis of some kind of pure or superior race.
The same way I'd say that Germans existed at this time. They just weren't the kind of people that 19th Century German nationalists thought they were.
And do you have any evidence for this distinct ethnicity? It doesn't seem very likely to me, given the continued cultural and linguistic diversity even within England, and what we know of extant genetic differences today. There were and still are many Englands within the borders of England. The wider you cast your net to catch of England, the more readily you will scoop up that which is not and never has been England. Do you think Cumbrians were closer to Sussex folk or to people from Strathclyde? How much did the people of Whitby have in common with Oksbøl versus Oxford?
I have serious doubts about whether you could ever draw a genetic line around England and only England at any point in all of England's history.
And if given the above is true, what use could there be for persisting with the myth if not to make political mischief today? In whose interest is it to link a nation to a fictional genetic stock, other than those whose ideology is filtration and exclusion?
A Royal House whose kings called themselves Kings of England. England would be conquered in the future, but England never ceased to exist as an entity, after 960. They had a common language, a common literature, a common religion, and a common enemy.
These are what create an ethnic group. Claiming that the Anglo-Saxons did not exist as an ethnic group is like claiming that Poles, Germans, Ukrainians etc. did not.
Much of what you claim here can be disputed, though. Caxton's dilemma when choosing how to translate works he intended to print in "English" illustrates the linguistic point:
And he asked specifically for eggs, and the good woman said that she spoke no French, and the merchant got angry for he could not speak French either, but he wanted eggs and she could not understand him. And then at last another person said that he wanted ‘eyren’. Then the good woman said that she understood him well.
That is, people from the opposite ends of England often literally could not understand one another, to the extent that one of them thought the other was speaking an entirely different language! And this is from the year 1490. 1490!
The heterogeneity of England in pre-modern times is consistently underestimated, and by the time it really settles down into something that one can really start to sensibly call one ethnic group, you're already way beyond the point where England was its own thing. What of Wales, by the time Caxton was writing?
As for the common enemy... whom? When? Even when the Normans invaded, there wasn't unity, even between midlands and the south. If there had have been, the invasion might have been repelled.
The common enemy were the Danes and the Norse. The House of Wessex/England spent 150 years fighting them. As we're seeing in Ukraine, nothing does more to create a shared sense of identity than military service against an enemy attacking one's homeland.
What's the evidence for this English unity against the Norse? The Norse occupied much of England at the time of Alfred, and when Alfred stemmed the invasion of Wessex the settlement left the likes of Guthrum in power in other parts of England. Alfred was comfortable accommodating Norse rule in other parts of England as long as the Norse leadership converted to Christianity. Was there a popular clamour against this, anywhere? Did the Norse settlers in the north and east of England want a unified England? Did anybody outside the court of Wessex really care about that kind of nation building?
Farooq c. 2100: "What's the evidence for this Ukrainian unity against the Russians? The Russians occupied much of Ukraine at the time of Zelensky, who was himself a native Russian speaker. Was there a popular clamour against this, anywhere? Did the Russian settlers in the south and east of Ukraine want a unified state? Did anybody outside the US-sponsored Kiev regime really care about that kind of nation building?"
Well no, because the written evidence of what ordinary Ukrainians think about Russia's fascist imperialism is a matter of record. If you think we have that kind of documentary evidence of what a peasant farmer outside St Edmundsbury or a miller in Jorvik thought about Norse or Wessex rule you're kidding yourself. We have scant and partial evidence from that time. It's hard to elevate the records kept in Winchester to a story of a nation united to throw off the Viking yoke. You need much better evidence than you have for that kind of claim.
That's not what I was getting at but rather than you seem overly keen to dismiss any foundation for English national identity.
Oddly I think you'll find that it was William the Bastard who really established what we know as England today. Although by the time he'd finished the north of it was pretty well deserted!
As ever, the headline doesn't reflect the reality of the story:
He added: “I’m not trying to create any scaremongering, and I want to emphasise that not all 6,000 multi-storey car parks across the UK have to be closed.
“It’s only the very old ones, built in the 60s and 70s, which are in a very poor state of repair and have weakened over time which will probably need to have some work done to them.
Basically the title should be "Heavy cars too heavy for old multi-story car parks".
In the ‘60s and ‘70s, the average car weighed about 800kg In the 2010s, the average car weighed about 1600kg The average 2030s car might be over 2000kg.
Exceedingly unlikely. Even a relatively high end model like the Tesla Y is under 2 tonnes. And batteries will be a lot lighter by 2030.
As ever, the headline doesn't reflect the reality of the story:
He added: “I’m not trying to create any scaremongering, and I want to emphasise that not all 6,000 multi-storey car parks across the UK have to be closed.
“It’s only the very old ones, built in the 60s and 70s, which are in a very poor state of repair and have weakened over time which will probably need to have some work done to them.
Basically the title should be "Heavy cars too heavy for old multi-story car parks".
In the ‘60s and ‘70s, the average car weighed about 800kg In the 2010s, the average car weighed about 1600kg The average 2030s car might be over 2000kg.
Exceedingly unlikely. Even a relatively high end model like the Tesla Y is under 2 tonnes. And batteries will be a lot lighter by 2030.
The Tesla is still heavier that the cars it replaces, even though it does a pretty good job itself of keeping the weight to a minimum.
Re the Anglo-Saxons, if we can’t call them “Anglo-Saxons” then what do we call the Germanic invaders who took over the country in the 4th-6th century, displacing Romano-Brits and Celts?
Coz that definitely happened. We can see from place-name evidence. Everywhere
Crikey, yes. Yet again some guy posting on a discussion site completely outwits the academic establishment by spotting something all the eggheads had missed. There'll be some red faces in our universities today. Thank heaven for the Internet.
I’m actually not disputing the Woke academics here on the term (I’ve always felt “Anglo-Saxon” is slightly clumsy). I’m saying the ARGUMENT is a Woke irrelevance. In the 4th-6th century a bunch of Germanic types with a new culture and language came over to Britain and altered our gene pool and changed all the place names. That indisputably happened (you can call it an invasion or not, that’s not my point)
These people need a name. If it can’t be Anglo-Saxon then what will that name be?
As I say, only “early English” is short and pithy enough to work but that will just get the lefties even angrier
The crux of the issue, when not misrepresented by ignorant commentators, is whether the label refers to a distinct ethnic group. It does not, despite the beliefs of some who would rather it did. The reason why they would rather it did fits into the reason for it being a relevant question. Those who would seek to build their politics on a pillar of racial purity or superiority have a fatal flaw in the foundations of their ideology.
Sadly these people still exist and their reaction is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
I think that a group of people that one can call Anglo-Saxons, or English, had become a distinct ethnic group, by the middle of the 10th century, and I see nothing in the Reddit article that conflicts with that.
That's very different from saying that these people formed the basis of some kind of pure or superior race.
The same way I'd say that Germans existed at this time. They just weren't the kind of people that 19th Century German nationalists thought they were.
And do you have any evidence for this distinct ethnicity? It doesn't seem very likely to me, given the continued cultural and linguistic diversity even within England, and what we know of extant genetic differences today. There were and still are many Englands within the borders of England. The wider you cast your net to catch of England, the more readily you will scoop up that which is not and never has been England. Do you think Cumbrians were closer to Sussex folk or to people from Strathclyde? How much did the people of Whitby have in common with Oksbøl versus Oxford?
I have serious doubts about whether you could ever draw a genetic line around England and only England at any point in all of England's history.
And if given the above is true, what use could there be for persisting with the myth if not to make political mischief today? In whose interest is it to link a nation to a fictional genetic stock, other than those whose ideology is filtration and exclusion?
A Royal House whose kings called themselves Kings of England. England would be conquered in the future, but England never ceased to exist as an entity, after 960. They had a common language, a common literature, a common religion, and a common enemy.
These are what create an ethnic group. Claiming that the Anglo-Saxons did not exist as an ethnic group is like claiming that Poles, Germans, Ukrainians etc. did not.
Much of what you claim here can be disputed, though. Caxton's dilemma when choosing how to translate works he intended to print in "English" illustrates the linguistic point:
And he asked specifically for eggs, and the good woman said that she spoke no French, and the merchant got angry for he could not speak French either, but he wanted eggs and she could not understand him. And then at last another person said that he wanted ‘eyren’. Then the good woman said that she understood him well.
That is, people from the opposite ends of England often literally could not understand one another, to the extent that one of them thought the other was speaking an entirely different language! And this is from the year 1490. 1490!
The heterogeneity of England in pre-modern times is consistently underestimated, and by the time it really settles down into something that one can really start to sensibly call one ethnic group, you're already way beyond the point where England was its own thing. What of Wales, by the time Caxton was writing?
As for the common enemy... whom? When? Even when the Normans invaded, there wasn't unity, even between midlands and the south. If there had have been, the invasion might have been repelled.
The common enemy were the Danes and the Norse. The House of Wessex/England spent 150 years fighting them. As we're seeing in Ukraine, nothing does more to create a shared sense of identity than military service against an enemy attacking one's homeland.
What's the evidence for this English unity against the Norse? The Norse occupied much of England at the time of Alfred, and when Alfred stemmed the invasion of Wessex the settlement left the likes of Guthrum in power in other parts of England. Alfred was comfortable accommodating Norse rule in other parts of England as long as the Norse leadership converted to Christianity. Was there a popular clamour against this, anywhere? Did the Norse settlers in the north and east of England want a unified England? Did anybody outside the court of Wessex really care about that kind of nation building?
The Court of Wessex and the clergy who served them loyally were the people who mattered. Within 50 years after Alfred's death, they'd unified it all (other than a brief attempt by Eric Bloodaxe to regain York). The Heptarchy was gone for ever. Nobody was interested in reviving Northumbria, East Anglia, Kent, Mercia as separate kingdoms.
The nobility and the clergy certainly held the power and its their voices who come down to us today. And the facts of the matter are as you stated: England was unified politically and remains so. But those claims don't delve into the common sentiment, which is where we started. It's entirely possible for a unified state to exist above the indifference or even hostility of the peasantry.
I simply don't know of any evidence of the kind of sentiment being assumed here. The starting point for my question was the idea that the Danes were the common enemy. Given that a sizeable portion of England was of Norse origin, I find this claim dubious. We don't know very well what those people thought so we should avoid making claims on their opinions.
It's especially egregious in this case because we're trying to assess the claims of England being a single people, and the evidence offered is that they were united against a common enemy, which seems to rely on the idea that of course they were because they were a common people. That is begging the question in the proper sense.
Cars have generally - even before EVs - been getting larger and heavier.
The old Mini weighted less than 600kg; the new one is twice that (or maybe even a little more).
However, this is a problem that is easily solved. If a car park is deemed unable to deal with the weight of modern cars, you just mandate max capacity of 80% or whatever.
They are talking about making the spaces bigger anyway because the cars are bigger so that probably sorts the problem. I guess the annoying bit is where pillars are involved say between 3 spaces that now becomes 2 huge spaces meaning you have over compensated, but that is life.
Seems like the problem is solved with a heat gun to get rid of the old paint and a new paint brush, although you now probably have a big shortage of parking spaces.
I'm supremely uninterested and lack details - but why the furore? He's had an affair at work. Is that it?
I think it says a lot about the shifting sands of our culture. Would anyone have even regarded what he did as “an affair” 20 years ago?
It's bullshit though - the sands haven't really shifted. Jeez, I'd have been sacked loads of times. How many people have found their spouse's via work, often while with a former partner? The puritanism of some astonishes me.
Yup. I'm married to my former manageress, with whom I had a fling at work!
As far as I can see, Schofield has done nothing illegal, so all the rest is mere value judgements based on a media circus generated by organisations that love talking about nothing but themselves.
He is one of millions of people who have met a partner at work and while the extreme junior-senior element was perhaps distasteful to some I don't see why this story is commanding so much attention.
He's left. He's gone. So presumably that's it?
It does seem like, unless there was illegality afoot, Schofield should now be left alone.
Or are the febrile media looking for a Caroline Flack redux?
Because it’s been decided that the star ‘talent’, in his 50s, f…ing the 18-year-old intern, is no longer acceptable.
Both men were over the age of consent weren’t they? What’s the point of having that law otherwise?
A sixth form girl inflagrante with her teacher would also be a case of two people being over the age of consent, but it wouldn't stop the teacher getting banged up.
I just don't believe hounding Schofield is the way forward. If he has broken the law, that is for law enforcement to determine, if he hasn't leave him alone.
The problem here appears to be that the fellow teacher, head of department, deputy head, head teacher, school board, and local education authority, all knew about the relationship, realised it was bad, and conspired to cover it up.
Once again, assuming no law was broken I don't see the problem. Covering up a non-illegal act isn't really a cover up.
Now if the allusion here is there was illegality and that illegality was covered up that is a more serious story.
Re the Anglo-Saxons, if we can’t call them “Anglo-Saxons” then what do we call the Germanic invaders who took over the country in the 4th-6th century, displacing Romano-Brits and Celts?
Coz that definitely happened. We can see from place-name evidence. Everywhere
Crikey, yes. Yet again some guy posting on a discussion site completely outwits the academic establishment by spotting something all the eggheads had missed. There'll be some red faces in our universities today. Thank heaven for the Internet.
I’m actually not disputing the Woke academics here on the term (I’ve always felt “Anglo-Saxon” is slightly clumsy). I’m saying the ARGUMENT is a Woke irrelevance. In the 4th-6th century a bunch of Germanic types with a new culture and language came over to Britain and altered our gene pool and changed all the place names. That indisputably happened (you can call it an invasion or not, that’s not my point)
These people need a name. If it can’t be Anglo-Saxon then what will that name be?
As I say, only “early English” is short and pithy enough to work but that will just get the lefties even angrier
The crux of the issue, when not misrepresented by ignorant commentators, is whether the label refers to a distinct ethnic group. It does not, despite the beliefs of some who would rather it did. The reason why they would rather it did fits into the reason for it being a relevant question. Those who would seek to build their politics on a pillar of racial purity or superiority have a fatal flaw in the foundations of their ideology.
Sadly these people still exist and their reaction is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
I think that a group of people that one can call Anglo-Saxons, or English, had become a distinct ethnic group, by the middle of the 10th century, and I see nothing in the Reddit article that conflicts with that.
That's very different from saying that these people formed the basis of some kind of pure or superior race.
The same way I'd say that Germans existed at this time. They just weren't the kind of people that 19th Century German nationalists thought they were.
And do you have any evidence for this distinct ethnicity? It doesn't seem very likely to me, given the continued cultural and linguistic diversity even within England, and what we know of extant genetic differences today. There were and still are many Englands within the borders of England. The wider you cast your net to catch of England, the more readily you will scoop up that which is not and never has been England. Do you think Cumbrians were closer to Sussex folk or to people from Strathclyde? How much did the people of Whitby have in common with Oksbøl versus Oxford?
I have serious doubts about whether you could ever draw a genetic line around England and only England at any point in all of England's history.
And if given the above is true, what use could there be for persisting with the myth if not to make political mischief today? In whose interest is it to link a nation to a fictional genetic stock, other than those whose ideology is filtration and exclusion?
A Royal House whose kings called themselves Kings of England. England would be conquered in the future, but England never ceased to exist as an entity, after 960. They had a common language, a common literature, a common religion, and a common enemy.
These are what create an ethnic group. Claiming that the Anglo-Saxons did not exist as an ethnic group is like claiming that Poles, Germans, Ukrainians etc. did not.
Much of what you claim here can be disputed, though. Caxton's dilemma when choosing how to translate works he intended to print in "English" illustrates the linguistic point:
And he asked specifically for eggs, and the good woman said that she spoke no French, and the merchant got angry for he could not speak French either, but he wanted eggs and she could not understand him. And then at last another person said that he wanted ‘eyren’. Then the good woman said that she understood him well.
That is, people from the opposite ends of England often literally could not understand one another, to the extent that one of them thought the other was speaking an entirely different language! And this is from the year 1490. 1490!
The heterogeneity of England in pre-modern times is consistently underestimated, and by the time it really settles down into something that one can really start to sensibly call one ethnic group, you're already way beyond the point where England was its own thing. What of Wales, by the time Caxton was writing?
As for the common enemy... whom? When? Even when the Normans invaded, there wasn't unity, even between midlands and the south. If there had have been, the invasion might have been repelled.
The common enemy were the Danes and the Norse. The House of Wessex/England spent 150 years fighting them. As we're seeing in Ukraine, nothing does more to create a shared sense of identity than military service against an enemy attacking one's homeland.
What's the evidence for this English unity against the Norse? The Norse occupied much of England at the time of Alfred, and when Alfred stemmed the invasion of Wessex the settlement left the likes of Guthrum in power in other parts of England. Alfred was comfortable accommodating Norse rule in other parts of England as long as the Norse leadership converted to Christianity. Was there a popular clamour against this, anywhere? Did the Norse settlers in the north and east of England want a unified England? Did anybody outside the court of Wessex really care about that kind of nation building?
Farooq c. 2100: "What's the evidence for this Ukrainian unity against the Russians? The Russians occupied much of Ukraine at the time of Zelensky, who was himself a native Russian speaker. Was there a popular clamour against this, anywhere? Did the Russian settlers in the south and east of Ukraine want a unified state? Did anybody outside the US-sponsored Kiev regime really care about that kind of nation building?"
Well no, because the written evidence of what ordinary Ukrainians think about Russia's fascist imperialism is a matter of record. If you think we have that kind of documentary evidence of what a peasant farmer outside St Edmundsbury or a miller in Jorvik thought about Norse or Wessex rule you're kidding yourself. We have scant and partial evidence from that time. It's hard to elevate the records kept in Winchester to a story of a nation united to throw off the Viking yoke. You need much better evidence than you have for that kind of claim.
That's not what I was getting at but rather than you seem overly keen to dismiss any foundation for English national identity.
I'm saying we should not speak for the mute without thinking carefully about whether it's their voice or ours we're projecting.
Re the Anglo-Saxons, if we can’t call them “Anglo-Saxons” then what do we call the Germanic invaders who took over the country in the 4th-6th century, displacing Romano-Brits and Celts?
Coz that definitely happened. We can see from place-name evidence. Everywhere
Crikey, yes. Yet again some guy posting on a discussion site completely outwits the academic establishment by spotting something all the eggheads had missed. There'll be some red faces in our universities today. Thank heaven for the Internet.
I’m actually not disputing the Woke academics here on the term (I’ve always felt “Anglo-Saxon” is slightly clumsy). I’m saying the ARGUMENT is a Woke irrelevance. In the 4th-6th century a bunch of Germanic types with a new culture and language came over to Britain and altered our gene pool and changed all the place names. That indisputably happened (you can call it an invasion or not, that’s not my point)
These people need a name. If it can’t be Anglo-Saxon then what will that name be?
As I say, only “early English” is short and pithy enough to work but that will just get the lefties even angrier
The crux of the issue, when not misrepresented by ignorant commentators, is whether the label refers to a distinct ethnic group. It does not, despite the beliefs of some who would rather it did. The reason why they would rather it did fits into the reason for it being a relevant question. Those who would seek to build their politics on a pillar of racial purity or superiority have a fatal flaw in the foundations of their ideology.
Sadly these people still exist and their reaction is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
I think that a group of people that one can call Anglo-Saxons, or English, had become a distinct ethnic group, by the middle of the 10th century, and I see nothing in the Reddit article that conflicts with that.
That's very different from saying that these people formed the basis of some kind of pure or superior race.
The same way I'd say that Germans existed at this time. They just weren't the kind of people that 19th Century German nationalists thought they were.
And do you have any evidence for this distinct ethnicity? It doesn't seem very likely to me, given the continued cultural and linguistic diversity even within England, and what we know of extant genetic differences today. There were and still are many Englands within the borders of England. The wider you cast your net to catch of England, the more readily you will scoop up that which is not and never has been England. Do you think Cumbrians were closer to Sussex folk or to people from Strathclyde? How much did the people of Whitby have in common with Oksbøl versus Oxford?
I have serious doubts about whether you could ever draw a genetic line around England and only England at any point in all of England's history.
And if given the above is true, what use could there be for persisting with the myth if not to make political mischief today? In whose interest is it to link a nation to a fictional genetic stock, other than those whose ideology is filtration and exclusion?
A Royal House whose kings called themselves Kings of England. England would be conquered in the future, but England never ceased to exist as an entity, after 960. They had a common language, a common literature, a common religion, and a common enemy.
These are what create an ethnic group. Claiming that the Anglo-Saxons did not exist as an ethnic group is like claiming that Poles, Germans, Ukrainians etc. did not.
Much of what you claim here can be disputed, though. Caxton's dilemma when choosing how to translate works he intended to print in "English" illustrates the linguistic point:
And he asked specifically for eggs, and the good woman said that she spoke no French, and the merchant got angry for he could not speak French either, but he wanted eggs and she could not understand him. And then at last another person said that he wanted ‘eyren’. Then the good woman said that she understood him well.
That is, people from the opposite ends of England often literally could not understand one another, to the extent that one of them thought the other was speaking an entirely different language! And this is from the year 1490. 1490!
The heterogeneity of England in pre-modern times is consistently underestimated, and by the time it really settles down into something that one can really start to sensibly call one ethnic group, you're already way beyond the point where England was its own thing. What of Wales, by the time Caxton was writing?
As for the common enemy... whom? When? Even when the Normans invaded, there wasn't unity, even between midlands and the south. If there had have been, the invasion might have been repelled.
The common enemy were the Danes and the Norse. The House of Wessex/England spent 150 years fighting them. As we're seeing in Ukraine, nothing does more to create a shared sense of identity than military service against an enemy attacking one's homeland.
What's the evidence for this English unity against the Norse? The Norse occupied much of England at the time of Alfred, and when Alfred stemmed the invasion of Wessex the settlement left the likes of Guthrum in power in other parts of England. Alfred was comfortable accommodating Norse rule in other parts of England as long as the Norse leadership converted to Christianity. Was there a popular clamour against this, anywhere? Did the Norse settlers in the north and east of England want a unified England? Did anybody outside the court of Wessex really care about that kind of nation building?
Farooq c. 2100: "What's the evidence for this Ukrainian unity against the Russians? The Russians occupied much of Ukraine at the time of Zelensky, who was himself a native Russian speaker. Was there a popular clamour against this, anywhere? Did the Russian settlers in the south and east of Ukraine want a unified state? Did anybody outside the US-sponsored Kiev regime really care about that kind of nation building?"
Well no, because the written evidence of what ordinary Ukrainians think about Russia's fascist imperialism is a matter of record. If you think we have that kind of documentary evidence of what a peasant farmer outside St Edmundsbury or a miller in Jorvik thought about Norse or Wessex rule you're kidding yourself. We have scant and partial evidence from that time. It's hard to elevate the records kept in Winchester to a story of a nation united to throw off the Viking yoke. You need much better evidence than you have for that kind of claim.
That's not what I was getting at but rather than you seem overly keen to dismiss any foundation for English national identity.
Re the Anglo-Saxons, if we can’t call them “Anglo-Saxons” then what do we call the Germanic invaders who took over the country in the 4th-6th century, displacing Romano-Brits and Celts?
Coz that definitely happened. We can see from place-name evidence. Everywhere
Crikey, yes. Yet again some guy posting on a discussion site completely outwits the academic establishment by spotting something all the eggheads had missed. There'll be some red faces in our universities today. Thank heaven for the Internet.
I’m actually not disputing the Woke academics here on the term (I’ve always felt “Anglo-Saxon” is slightly clumsy). I’m saying the ARGUMENT is a Woke irrelevance. In the 4th-6th century a bunch of Germanic types with a new culture and language came over to Britain and altered our gene pool and changed all the place names. That indisputably happened (you can call it an invasion or not, that’s not my point)
These people need a name. If it can’t be Anglo-Saxon then what will that name be?
As I say, only “early English” is short and pithy enough to work but that will just get the lefties even angrier
The crux of the issue, when not misrepresented by ignorant commentators, is whether the label refers to a distinct ethnic group. It does not, despite the beliefs of some who would rather it did. The reason why they would rather it did fits into the reason for it being a relevant question. Those who would seek to build their politics on a pillar of racial purity or superiority have a fatal flaw in the foundations of their ideology.
Sadly these people still exist and their reaction is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
I think that a group of people that one can call Anglo-Saxons, or English, had become a distinct ethnic group, by the middle of the 10th century, and I see nothing in the Reddit article that conflicts with that.
That's very different from saying that these people formed the basis of some kind of pure or superior race.
The same way I'd say that Germans existed at this time. They just weren't the kind of people that 19th Century German nationalists thought they were.
And do you have any evidence for this distinct ethnicity? It doesn't seem very likely to me, given the continued cultural and linguistic diversity even within England, and what we know of extant genetic differences today. There were and still are many Englands within the borders of England. The wider you cast your net to catch of England, the more readily you will scoop up that which is not and never has been England. Do you think Cumbrians were closer to Sussex folk or to people from Strathclyde? How much did the people of Whitby have in common with Oksbøl versus Oxford?
I have serious doubts about whether you could ever draw a genetic line around England and only England at any point in all of England's history.
And if given the above is true, what use could there be for persisting with the myth if not to make political mischief today? In whose interest is it to link a nation to a fictional genetic stock, other than those whose ideology is filtration and exclusion?
A Royal House whose kings called themselves Kings of England. England would be conquered in the future, but England never ceased to exist as an entity, after 960. They had a common language, a common literature, a common religion, and a common enemy.
These are what create an ethnic group. Claiming that the Anglo-Saxons did not exist as an ethnic group is like claiming that Poles, Germans, Ukrainians etc. did not.
Much of what you claim here can be disputed, though. Caxton's dilemma when choosing how to translate works he intended to print in "English" illustrates the linguistic point:
And he asked specifically for eggs, and the good woman said that she spoke no French, and the merchant got angry for he could not speak French either, but he wanted eggs and she could not understand him. And then at last another person said that he wanted ‘eyren’. Then the good woman said that she understood him well.
That is, people from the opposite ends of England often literally could not understand one another, to the extent that one of them thought the other was speaking an entirely different language! And this is from the year 1490. 1490!
The heterogeneity of England in pre-modern times is consistently underestimated, and by the time it really settles down into something that one can really start to sensibly call one ethnic group, you're already way beyond the point where England was its own thing. What of Wales, by the time Caxton was writing?
As for the common enemy... whom? When? Even when the Normans invaded, there wasn't unity, even between midlands and the south. If there had have been, the invasion might have been repelled.
The common enemy were the Danes and the Norse. The House of Wessex/England spent 150 years fighting them. As we're seeing in Ukraine, nothing does more to create a shared sense of identity than military service against an enemy attacking one's homeland.
What's the evidence for this English unity against the Norse? The Norse occupied much of England at the time of Alfred, and when Alfred stemmed the invasion of Wessex the settlement left the likes of Guthrum in power in other parts of England. Alfred was comfortable accommodating Norse rule in other parts of England as long as the Norse leadership converted to Christianity. Was there a popular clamour against this, anywhere? Did the Norse settlers in the north and east of England want a unified England? Did anybody outside the court of Wessex really care about that kind of nation building?
Farooq c. 2100: "What's the evidence for this Ukrainian unity against the Russians? The Russians occupied much of Ukraine at the time of Zelensky, who was himself a native Russian speaker. Was there a popular clamour against this, anywhere? Did the Russian settlers in the south and east of Ukraine want a unified state? Did anybody outside the US-sponsored Kiev regime really care about that kind of nation building?"
Well no, because the written evidence of what ordinary Ukrainians think about Russia's fascist imperialism is a matter of record. If you think we have that kind of documentary evidence of what a peasant farmer outside St Edmundsbury or a miller in Jorvik thought about Norse or Wessex rule you're kidding yourself. We have scant and partial evidence from that time. It's hard to elevate the records kept in Winchester to a story of a nation united to throw off the Viking yoke. You need much better evidence than you have for that kind of claim.
That's not what I was getting at but rather than you seem overly keen to dismiss any foundation for English national identity.
I don't think that the case. Rather he's pointing out that foundation myths are myth rather than history.
There was not much recognisably 'English' as now understood about this land back in 1065. Fast forward to Tudor times and there's a great deal which is.
As ever, the headline doesn't reflect the reality of the story:
He added: “I’m not trying to create any scaremongering, and I want to emphasise that not all 6,000 multi-storey car parks across the UK have to be closed.
“It’s only the very old ones, built in the 60s and 70s, which are in a very poor state of repair and have we
The much more interesting question is why is there this sudden splurge of hate for electric cars?
And why is it so pessimistic? Sure, there may be some problems in the transition from internal combustion engines, but they aren't beyond the wit of humanity to solve.
As ever, the headline doesn't reflect the reality of the story:
He added: “I’m not trying to create any scaremongering, and I want to emphasise that not all 6,000 multi-storey car parks across the UK have to be closed.
“It’s only the very old ones, built in the 60s and 70s, which are in a very poor state of repair and have we
The much more interesting question is why is there this sudden splurge of hate for electric cars?
And why is it so pessimistic? Sure, there may be some problems in the transition from internal combustion engines, but they aren't beyond the wit of humanity to solve.
As ever, the headline doesn't reflect the reality of the story:
He added: “I’m not trying to create any scaremongering, and I want to emphasise that not all 6,000 multi-storey car parks across the UK have to be closed.
“It’s only the very old ones, built in the 60s and 70s, which are in a very poor state of repair and have we
The much more interesting question is why is there this sudden splurge of hate for electric cars?
And why is it so pessimistic? Sure, there may be some problems in the transition from internal combustion engines, but they aren't beyond the wit of humanity to solve.
As ever, the headline doesn't reflect the reality of the story:
He added: “I’m not trying to create any scaremongering, and I want to emphasise that not all 6,000 multi-storey car parks across the UK have to be closed.
“It’s only the very old ones, built in the 60s and 70s, which are in a very poor state of repair and have we
The much more interesting question is why is there this sudden splurge of hate for electric cars?
And why is it so pessimistic? Sure, there may be some problems in the transition from internal combustion engines, but they aren't beyond the wit of humanity to solve.
The Viking invasions were probably the moment the English began to feel REALLY English. A people
There’s nothing like being attacked to make you the victims band together, and bond into a team
Indeed. I'd say most nations begin this way.
Look at what is happening in Ukraine right now. Before Putin's Special Clusterfuck, the Ukes were a bit nebulous, half Russian, half Polish, half hmmm (Putin actually had a historical point, tho it does not begin to justify his hideous war)
Now, the Ukrainians are ABSOLUTELY a nation. They are the people who got attacked by Russia. They will be the people that endured that horrible war (inshallah). "Ukrainian-ness" will be off the dial by the end of all this
Putin will achieve the complete opposite of what he intended
I agree with the general point, but roots of their cultural identity go back much longer than you suggest. The 'half Russian, half Polish" bit describes only the ruling elites over the course of the last few centuries.
Ukrainian history and culture is multi faceted but it is pretty long established. You can trace a distinct Ukrainian identity for a good 1000 years. So this idea that Ukrainians are a rather nebulous group is a bit of a false narrative- it depends who you talked to. Both Russians in the north and Ukrainians in the south looked to Kievan Rus as their proto-state, but from the Mongol invasion onward, the Southern identity became and remained separate from the North and after Moscow took control in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century there was a distinct linguistic and cultural divide.
What has happened is the total rejection of anything Russian, even things- like Pushkin- that were previously respected. With Ukraine, Russia is an Empire, without it, it has "yet to find a role" and is derided as a bunch of loathsome barbarians who couldn´t even do pillaging right.
You're correct about the much longer history.
Leon was not wrong, though, to point out what's now Ukraine was variously partitioned between the Russian, Polish Lithuanian, and Austria Hungarian empires over the course of several centuries. And the idea of the modern nation state has its roots only in the nineteenth century.
The first real attempt at building a Ukrainian nation state in the modern sense - quickly crushed - was in the aftermath of WWI. And then Stalin, and Holodomor, and Hitler. And Stalin again.
Ukraine was a fairly cohesive nation after the Maidan revolution. All Putin has done is guarantee it will never go back.
The idea of any modern nation state is almost always a nineteenth century invention. However, whereas the Czechs or the Estonians were able to achieve a nation state in 1918, as you say the charnel house of the USSR delayed the creation of a genuinely independent Ukrainian nation state until 1991. I´d say they were catching up on nation building astonishingly rapidly.
It also poses the question of whether the 19thC nation state is one we should never rethink. Contrary to the PB truism of there being no democracy without a demos, the very genesis of Ukraine's current nation state is democracy itself. What sort of demos can states really claim without democracy ?
Nationalism, and movement towards democracy, if not full democracy, go hand in hand I think. I'd say that the French Revolution gave rise to nationalism as we would understand it today.
Mary Beard in a recent episode of the podcast Empire argued that the rise of democracy was often associated with a iniquitous division of society into those that matter and those that don't. I'm not certain exactly how this fits with your claim, but the details are left to the reader.
Many if not all early democracies had distinctly limited voter pools. Restriction by sex(gender), property, class etc was common.
Re the Anglo-Saxons, if we can’t call them “Anglo-Saxons” then what do we call the Germanic invaders who took over the country in the 4th-6th century, displacing Romano-Brits and Celts?
Coz that definitely happened. We can see from place-name evidence. Everywhere
Crikey, yes. Yet again some guy posting on a discussion site completely outwits the academic establishment by spotting something all the eggheads had missed. There'll be some red faces in our universities today. Thank heaven for the Internet.
I’m actually not disputing the Woke academics here on the term (I’ve always felt “Anglo-Saxon” is slightly clumsy). I’m saying the ARGUMENT is a Woke irrelevance. In the 4th-6th century a bunch of Germanic types with a new culture and language came over to Britain and altered our gene pool and changed all the place names. That indisputably happened (you can call it an invasion or not, that’s not my point)
These people need a name. If it can’t be Anglo-Saxon then what will that name be?
As I say, only “early English” is short and pithy enough to work but that will just get the lefties even angrier
The crux of the issue, when not misrepresented by ignorant commentators, is whether the label refers to a distinct ethnic group. It does not, despite the beliefs of some who would rather it did. The reason why they would rather it did fits into the reason for it being a relevant question. Those who would seek to build their politics on a pillar of racial purity or superiority have a fatal flaw in the foundations of their ideology.
Sadly these people still exist and their reaction is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
I think that a group of people that one can call Anglo-Saxons, or English, had become a distinct ethnic group, by the middle of the 10th century, and I see nothing in the Reddit article that conflicts with that.
That's very different from saying that these people formed the basis of some kind of pure or superior race.
The same way I'd say that Germans existed at this time. They just weren't the kind of people that 19th Century German nationalists thought they were.
And do you have any evidence for this distinct ethnicity? It doesn't seem very likely to me, given the continued cultural and linguistic diversity even within England, and what we know of extant genetic differences today. There were and still are many Englands within the borders of England. The wider you cast your net to catch of England, the more readily you will scoop up that which is not and never has been England. Do you think Cumbrians were closer to Sussex folk or to people from Strathclyde? How much did the people of Whitby have in common with Oksbøl versus Oxford?
I have serious doubts about whether you could ever draw a genetic line around England and only England at any point in all of England's history.
And if given the above is true, what use could there be for persisting with the myth if not to make political mischief today? In whose interest is it to link a nation to a fictional genetic stock, other than those whose ideology is filtration and exclusion?
A Royal House whose kings called themselves Kings of England. England would be conquered in the future, but England never ceased to exist as an entity, after 960. They had a common language, a common literature, a common religion, and a common enemy.
These are what create an ethnic group. Claiming that the Anglo-Saxons did not exist as an ethnic group is like claiming that Poles, Germans, Ukrainians etc. did not.
Much of what you claim here can be disputed, though. Caxton's dilemma when choosing how to translate works he intended to print in "English" illustrates the linguistic point:
And he asked specifically for eggs, and the good woman said that she spoke no French, and the merchant got angry for he could not speak French either, but he wanted eggs and she could not understand him. And then at last another person said that he wanted ‘eyren’. Then the good woman said that she understood him well.
That is, people from the opposite ends of England often literally could not understand one another, to the extent that one of them thought the other was speaking an entirely different language! And this is from the year 1490. 1490!
The heterogeneity of England in pre-modern times is consistently underestimated, and by the time it really settles down into something that one can really start to sensibly call one ethnic group, you're already way beyond the point where England was its own thing. What of Wales, by the time Caxton was writing?
As for the common enemy... whom? When? Even when the Normans invaded, there wasn't unity, even between midlands and the south. If there had have been, the invasion might have been repelled.
The common enemy were the Danes and the Norse. The House of Wessex/England spent 150 years fighting them. As we're seeing in Ukraine, nothing does more to create a shared sense of identity than military service against an enemy attacking one's homeland.
What's the evidence for this English unity against the Norse? The Norse occupied much of England at the time of Alfred, and when Alfred stemmed the invasion of Wessex the settlement left the likes of Guthrum in power in other parts of England. Alfred was comfortable accommodating Norse rule in other parts of England as long as the Norse leadership converted to Christianity. Was there a popular clamour against this, anywhere? Did the Norse settlers in the north and east of England want a unified England? Did anybody outside the court of Wessex really care about that kind of nation building?
The Court of Wessex and the clergy who served them loyally were the people who mattered. Within 50 years after Alfred's death, they'd unified it all (other than a brief attempt by Eric Bloodaxe to regain York). The Heptarchy was gone for ever. Nobody was interested in reviving Northumbria, East Anglia, Kent, Mercia as separate kingdoms.
The nobility and the clergy certainly held the power and its their voices who come down to us today. And the facts of the matter are as you stated: England was unified politically and remains so. But those claims don't delve into the common sentiment, which is where we started. It's entirely possible for a unified state to exist above the indifference or even hostility of the peasantry.
I simply don't know of any evidence of the kind of sentiment being assumed here. The starting point for my question was the idea that the Danes were the common enemy. Given that a sizeable portion of England was of Norse origin, I find this claim dubious. We don't know very well what those people thought so we should avoid making claims on their opinions.
It's especially egregious in this case because we're trying to assess the claims of England being a single people, and the evidence offered is that they were united against a common enemy, which seems to rely on the idea that of course they were because they were a common people. That is begging the question in the proper sense.
I'm sure that the main concern of the average peasant was that the crops should flourish, their children should live to adulthood, and that enemy armies should leave them alone.
WE just don't have the records of what ordinary people thought about politics.
I'm supremely uninterested and lack details - but why the furore? He's had an affair at work. Is that it?
I think it says a lot about the shifting sands of our culture. Would anyone have even regarded what he did as “an affair” 20 years ago?
20 years ago, people would have been less bothered about the age gap, but more bothered about the same-sex element. But, given he was married to someone else at the time, yes, it would still have been seen as an affair!
My point is - civil partnerships (2004) and, later, gay marriage (2014) fundamentally changed the way many people view relationships.
Society is still debating the ethics.
I’m not wrong, am I?
I wonder if there’s any opinion polls, or academic research based around the question;
If a married person secretly has sex with someone else of the same sex/gender, is it an affair?
I recon 50 years ago, perhaps 10% of ppl would say yes.
20 years ago, 40%.
Now. 90%
The 'affair' bit lies in the frequency of the encounters and the longevity of the relationship.
I'm supremely uninterested and lack details - but why the furore? He's had an affair at work. Is that it?
I think it says a lot about the shifting sands of our culture. Would anyone have even regarded what he did as “an affair” 20 years ago?
It's bullshit though - the sands haven't really shifted. Jeez, I'd have been sacked loads of times. How many people have found their spouse's via work, often while with a former partner? The puritanism of some astonishes me.
Yup. I'm married to my former manageress, with whom I had a fling at work!
As far as I can see, Schofield has done nothing illegal, so all the rest is mere value judgements based on a media circus generated by organisations that love talking about nothing but themselves.
He is one of millions of people who have met a partner at work and while the extreme junior-senior element was perhaps distasteful to some I don't see why this story is commanding so much attention.
He's left. He's gone. So presumably that's it?
It does seem like, unless there was illegality afoot, Schofield should now be left alone.
Or are the febrile media looking for a Caroline Flack redux?
Because it’s been decided that the star ‘talent’, in his 50s, f…ing the 18-year-old intern, is no longer acceptable.
Both men were over the age of consent weren’t they? What’s the point of having that law otherwise?
A sixth form girl inflagrante with her teacher would also be a case of two people being over the age of consent, but it wouldn't stop the teacher getting banged up.
I just don't believe hounding Schofield is the way forward. If he has broken the law, that is for law enforcement to determine, if he hasn't leave him alone.
The problem here appears to be that the fellow teacher, head of department, deputy head, head teacher, school board, and local education authority, all knew about the relationship, realised it was bad, and conspired to cover it up.
Once again, assuming no law was broken I don't see the problem. Covering up a non-illegal act isn't really a cover up.
Now if the allusion here is there was illegality and that illegality was covered up that is a more serious story.
I'm supremely uninterested and lack details - but why the furore? He's had an affair at work. Is that it?
I think it says a lot about the shifting sands of our culture. Would anyone have even regarded what he did as “an affair” 20 years ago?
It's bullshit though - the sands haven't really shifted. Jeez, I'd have been sacked loads of times. How many people have found their spouse's via work, often while with a former partner? The puritanism of some astonishes me.
Yup. I'm married to my former manageress, with whom I had a fling at work!
As far as I can see, Schofield has done nothing illegal, so all the rest is mere value judgements based on a media circus generated by organisations that love talking about nothing but themselves.
He is one of millions of people who have met a partner at work and while the extreme junior-senior element was perhaps distasteful to some I don't see why this story is commanding so much attention.
He's left. He's gone. So presumably that's it?
It does seem like, unless there was illegality afoot, Schofield should now be left alone.
Or are the febrile media looking for a Caroline Flack redux?
Because it’s been decided that the star ‘talent’, in his 50s, f…ing the 18-year-old intern, is no longer acceptable.
Both men were over the age of consent weren’t they? What’s the point of having that law otherwise?
A sixth form girl inflagrante with her teacher would also be a case of two people being over the age of consent, but it wouldn't stop the teacher getting banged up.
I just don't believe hounding Schofield is the way forward. If he has broken the law, that is for law enforcement to determine, if he hasn't leave him alone.
The problem here appears to be that the fellow teacher, head of department, deputy head, head teacher, school board, and local education authority, all knew about the relationship, realised it was bad, and conspired to cover it up.
A poor analogy, as the law regarding that situation is quite distinct. 'Position of trust' is a legal term defined in the Sexual Offences Act 2003. In section 22 it is explained as an adult “caring for, training, supervising or being in sole charge” of a child under the age of 18. Sexual relations with a child over the age of consent, in that situation, are illegal.
The Viking invasions were probably the moment the English began to feel REALLY English. A people
There’s nothing like being attacked to make you the victims band together, and bond into a team
Indeed. I'd say most nations begin this way.
Look at what is happening in Ukraine right now. Before Putin's Special Clusterfuck, the Ukes were a bit nebulous, half Russian, half Polish, half hmmm (Putin actually had a historical point, tho it does not begin to justify his hideous war)
Now, the Ukrainians are ABSOLUTELY a nation. They are the people who got attacked by Russia. They will be the people that endured that horrible war (inshallah). "Ukrainian-ness" will be off the dial by the end of all this
Putin will achieve the complete opposite of what he intended
I agree with the general point, but roots of their cultural identity go back much longer than you suggest. The 'half Russian, half Polish" bit describes only the ruling elites over the course of the last few centuries.
Ukrainian history and culture is multi faceted but it is pretty long established. You can trace a distinct Ukrainian identity for a good 1000 years. So this idea that Ukrainians are a rather nebulous group is a bit of a false narrative- it depends who you talked to. Both Russians in the north and Ukrainians in the south looked to Kievan Rus as their proto-state, but from the Mongol invasion onward, the Southern identity became and remained separate from the North and after Moscow took control in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century there was a distinct linguistic and cultural divide.
What has happened is the total rejection of anything Russian, even things- like Pushkin- that were previously respected. With Ukraine, Russia is an Empire, without it, it has "yet to find a role" and is derided as a bunch of loathsome barbarians who couldn´t even do pillaging right.
You're correct about the much longer history.
Leon was not wrong, though, to point out what's now Ukraine was variously partitioned between the Russian, Polish Lithuanian, and Austria Hungarian empires over the course of several centuries. And the idea of the modern nation state has its roots only in the nineteenth century.
The first real attempt at building a Ukrainian nation state in the modern sense - quickly crushed - was in the aftermath of WWI. And then Stalin, and Holodomor, and Hitler. And Stalin again.
Ukraine was a fairly cohesive nation after the Maidan revolution. All Putin has done is guarantee it will never go back.
The idea of any modern nation state is almost always a nineteenth century invention. However, whereas the Czechs or the Estonians were able to achieve a nation state in 1918, as you say the charnel house of the USSR delayed the creation of a genuinely independent Ukrainian nation state until 1991. I´d say they were catching up on nation building astonishingly rapidly.
It also poses the question of whether the 19thC nation state is one we should never rethink. Contrary to the PB truism of there being no democracy without a demos, the very genesis of Ukraine's current nation state is democracy itself. What sort of demos can states really claim without democracy ?
Nationalism, and movement towards democracy, if not full democracy, go hand in hand I think. I'd say that the French Revolution gave rise to nationalism as we would understand it today.
Mary Beard in a recent episode of the podcast Empire argued that the rise of democracy was often associated with a iniquitous division of society into those that matter and those that don't. I'm not certain exactly how this fits with your claim, but the details are left to the reader.
Many if not all early democracies had distinctly limited voter pools. Restriction by sex(gender), property, class etc was common.
Indeed, yes.
(Although even earlier, pre-urban cultures may have been democratic in a broader sense: see Wengrow/Graeber.)
Re the Anglo-Saxons, if we can’t call them “Anglo-Saxons” then what do we call the Germanic invaders who took over the country in the 4th-6th century, displacing Romano-Brits and Celts?
Coz that definitely happened. We can see from place-name evidence. Everywhere
Crikey, yes. Yet again some guy posting on a discussion site completely outwits the academic establishment by spotting something all the eggheads had missed. There'll be some red faces in our universities today. Thank heaven for the Internet.
I’m actually not disputing the Woke academics here on the term (I’ve always felt “Anglo-Saxon” is slightly clumsy). I’m saying the ARGUMENT is a Woke irrelevance. In the 4th-6th century a bunch of Germanic types with a new culture and language came over to Britain and altered our gene pool and changed all the place names. That indisputably happened (you can call it an invasion or not, that’s not my point)
These people need a name. If it can’t be Anglo-Saxon then what will that name be?
As I say, only “early English” is short and pithy enough to work but that will just get the lefties even angrier
The crux of the issue, when not misrepresented by ignorant commentators, is whether the label refers to a distinct ethnic group. It does not, despite the beliefs of some who would rather it did. The reason why they would rather it did fits into the reason for it being a relevant question. Those who would seek to build their politics on a pillar of racial purity or superiority have a fatal flaw in the foundations of their ideology.
Sadly these people still exist and their reaction is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
I think that a group of people that one can call Anglo-Saxons, or English, had become a distinct ethnic group, by the middle of the 10th century, and I see nothing in the Reddit article that conflicts with that.
That's very different from saying that these people formed the basis of some kind of pure or superior race.
The same way I'd say that Germans existed at this time. They just weren't the kind of people that 19th Century German nationalists thought they were.
And do you have any evidence for this distinct ethnicity? It doesn't seem very likely to me, given the continued cultural and linguistic diversity even within England, and what we know of extant genetic differences today. There were and still are many Englands within the borders of England. The wider you cast your net to catch of England, the more readily you will scoop up that which is not and never has been England. Do you think Cumbrians were closer to Sussex folk or to people from Strathclyde? How much did the people of Whitby have in common with Oksbøl versus Oxford?
I have serious doubts about whether you could ever draw a genetic line around England and only England at any point in all of England's history.
And if given the above is true, what use could there be for persisting with the myth if not to make political mischief today? In whose interest is it to link a nation to a fictional genetic stock, other than those whose ideology is filtration and exclusion?
A Royal House whose kings called themselves Kings of England. England would be conquered in the future, but England never ceased to exist as an entity, after 960. They had a common language, a common literature, a common religion, and a common enemy.
These are what create an ethnic group. Claiming that the Anglo-Saxons did not exist as an ethnic group is like claiming that Poles, Germans, Ukrainians etc. did not.
Much of what you claim here can be disputed, though. Caxton's dilemma when choosing how to translate works he intended to print in "English" illustrates the linguistic point:
And he asked specifically for eggs, and the good woman said that she spoke no French, and the merchant got angry for he could not speak French either, but he wanted eggs and she could not understand him. And then at last another person said that he wanted ‘eyren’. Then the good woman said that she understood him well.
That is, people from the opposite ends of England often literally could not understand one another, to the extent that one of them thought the other was speaking an entirely different language! And this is from the year 1490. 1490!
The heterogeneity of England in pre-modern times is consistently underestimated, and by the time it really settles down into something that one can really start to sensibly call one ethnic group, you're already way beyond the point where England was its own thing. What of Wales, by the time Caxton was writing?
As for the common enemy... whom? When? Even when the Normans invaded, there wasn't unity, even between midlands and the south. If there had have been, the invasion might have been repelled.
The common enemy were the Danes and the Norse. The House of Wessex/England spent 150 years fighting them. As we're seeing in Ukraine, nothing does more to create a shared sense of identity than military service against an enemy attacking one's homeland.
What's the evidence for this English unity against the Norse? The Norse occupied much of England at the time of Alfred, and when Alfred stemmed the invasion of Wessex the settlement left the likes of Guthrum in power in other parts of England. Alfred was comfortable accommodating Norse rule in other parts of England as long as the Norse leadership converted to Christianity. Was there a popular clamour against this, anywhere? Did the Norse settlers in the north and east of England want a unified England? Did anybody outside the court of Wessex really care about that kind of nation building?
The Court of Wessex and the clergy who served them loyally were the people who mattered. Within 50 years after Alfred's death, they'd unified it all (other than a brief attempt by Eric Bloodaxe to regain York). The Heptarchy was gone for ever. Nobody was interested in reviving Northumbria, East Anglia, Kent, Mercia as separate kingdoms.
The nobility and the clergy certainly held the power and its their voices who come down to us today. And the facts of the matter are as you stated: England was unified politically and remains so. But those claims don't delve into the common sentiment, which is where we started. It's entirely possible for a unified state to exist above the indifference or even hostility of the peasantry.
I simply don't know of any evidence of the kind of sentiment being assumed here. The starting point for my question was the idea that the Danes were the common enemy. Given that a sizeable portion of England was of Norse origin, I find this claim dubious. We don't know very well what those people thought so we should avoid making claims on their opinions.
It's especially egregious in this case because we're trying to assess the claims of England being a single people, and the evidence offered is that they were united against a common enemy, which seems to rely on the idea that of course they were because they were a common people. That is begging the question in the proper sense.
I'm sure that the main concern of the average peasant was that the crops should flourish, their children should live to adulthood, and that enemy any armies should leave them alone.
WE just don't have the records of what ordinary people thought about politics.
With one slight modification, that's how I see it too.
Re the Anglo-Saxons, if we can’t call them “Anglo-Saxons” then what do we call the Germanic invaders who took over the country in the 4th-6th century, displacing Romano-Brits and Celts?
Coz that definitely happened. We can see from place-name evidence. Everywhere
Crikey, yes. Yet again some guy posting on a discussion site completely outwits the academic establishment by spotting something all the eggheads had missed. There'll be some red faces in our universities today. Thank heaven for the Internet.
I’m actually not disputing the Woke academics here on the term (I’ve always felt “Anglo-Saxon” is slightly clumsy). I’m saying the ARGUMENT is a Woke irrelevance. In the 4th-6th century a bunch of Germanic types with a new culture and language came over to Britain and altered our gene pool and changed all the place names. That indisputably happened (you can call it an invasion or not, that’s not my point)
These people need a name. If it can’t be Anglo-Saxon then what will that name be?
As I say, only “early English” is short and pithy enough to work but that will just get the lefties even angrier
The crux of the issue, when not misrepresented by ignorant commentators, is whether the label refers to a distinct ethnic group. It does not, despite the beliefs of some who would rather it did. The reason why they would rather it did fits into the reason for it being a relevant question. Those who would seek to build their politics on a pillar of racial purity or superiority have a fatal flaw in the foundations of their ideology.
Sadly these people still exist and their reaction is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
I think that a group of people that one can call Anglo-Saxons, or English, had become a distinct ethnic group, by the middle of the 10th century, and I see nothing in the Reddit article that conflicts with that.
That's very different from saying that these people formed the basis of some kind of pure or superior race.
The same way I'd say that Germans existed at this time. They just weren't the kind of people that 19th Century German nationalists thought they were.
And do you have any evidence for this distinct ethnicity? It doesn't seem very likely to me, given the continued cultural and linguistic diversity even within England, and what we know of extant genetic differences today. There were and still are many Englands within the borders of England. The wider you cast your net to catch of England, the more readily you will scoop up that which is not and never has been England. Do you think Cumbrians were closer to Sussex folk or to people from Strathclyde? How much did the people of Whitby have in common with Oksbøl versus Oxford?
I have serious doubts about whether you could ever draw a genetic line around England and only England at any point in all of England's history.
And if given the above is true, what use could there be for persisting with the myth if not to make political mischief today? In whose interest is it to link a nation to a fictional genetic stock, other than those whose ideology is filtration and exclusion?
A Royal House whose kings called themselves Kings of England. England would be conquered in the future, but England never ceased to exist as an entity, after 960. They had a common language, a common literature, a common religion, and a common enemy.
These are what create an ethnic group. Claiming that the Anglo-Saxons did not exist as an ethnic group is like claiming that Poles, Germans, Ukrainians etc. did not.
Much of what you claim here can be disputed, though. Caxton's dilemma when choosing how to translate works he intended to print in "English" illustrates the linguistic point:
And he asked specifically for eggs, and the good woman said that she spoke no French, and the merchant got angry for he could not speak French either, but he wanted eggs and she could not understand him. And then at last another person said that he wanted ‘eyren’. Then the good woman said that she understood him well.
That is, people from the opposite ends of England often literally could not understand one another, to the extent that one of them thought the other was speaking an entirely different language! And this is from the year 1490. 1490!
The heterogeneity of England in pre-modern times is consistently underestimated, and by the time it really settles down into something that one can really start to sensibly call one ethnic group, you're already way beyond the point where England was its own thing. What of Wales, by the time Caxton was writing?
As for the common enemy... whom? When? Even when the Normans invaded, there wasn't unity, even between midlands and the south. If there had have been, the invasion might have been repelled.
The common enemy were the Danes and the Norse. The House of Wessex/England spent 150 years fighting them. As we're seeing in Ukraine, nothing does more to create a shared sense of identity than military service against an enemy attacking one's homeland.
What's the evidence for this English unity against the Norse? The Norse occupied much of England at the time of Alfred, and when Alfred stemmed the invasion of Wessex the settlement left the likes of Guthrum in power in other parts of England. Alfred was comfortable accommodating Norse rule in other parts of England as long as the Norse leadership converted to Christianity. Was there a popular clamour against this, anywhere? Did the Norse settlers in the north and east of England want a unified England? Did anybody outside the court of Wessex really care about that kind of nation building?
Farooq c. 2100: "What's the evidence for this Ukrainian unity against the Russians? The Russians occupied much of Ukraine at the time of Zelensky, who was himself a native Russian speaker. Was there a popular clamour against this, anywhere? Did the Russian settlers in the south and east of Ukraine want a unified state? Did anybody outside the US-sponsored Kiev regime really care about that kind of nation building?"
Well no, because the written evidence of what ordinary Ukrainians think about Russia's fascist imperialism is a matter of record. If you think we have that kind of documentary evidence of what a peasant farmer outside St Edmundsbury or a miller in Jorvik thought about Norse or Wessex rule you're kidding yourself. We have scant and partial evidence from that time. It's hard to elevate the records kept in Winchester to a story of a nation united to throw off the Viking yoke. You need much better evidence than you have for that kind of claim.
That's not what I was getting at but rather than you seem overly keen to dismiss any foundation for English national identity.
I don't think that the case. Rather he's pointing out that foundation myths are myth rather than history.
There was not much recognisably 'English' as now understood about this land back in 1065. Fast forward to Tudor times and there's a great deal which is.
The fact that you felt the need to insert the qualification "as now understood" undermines your point. We're talking about how people saw themselves at the time, not about what the term came to represent hundreds of years later.
As ever, the headline doesn't reflect the reality of the story:
He added: “I’m not trying to create any scaremongering, and I want to emphasise that not all 6,000 multi-storey car parks across the UK have to be closed.
“It’s only the very old ones, built in the 60s and 70s, which are in a very poor state of repair and have weakened over time which will probably need to have some work done to them.
Basically the title should be "Heavy cars too heavy for old multi-story car parks".
One thing I noticed using a couple of multistorey car parks recently was that where the ramps had bidirectional traffic you were directed to drive on the right not the left, which felt like it was a recipe for accidents. I wondered whether they were bought off the shelf based on US or continental designs. Both the offending car parks were in Leeds IIRC so maybe it is a Yorkshire thing.
I'm supremely uninterested and lack details - but why the furore? He's had an affair at work. Is that it?
I think it says a lot about the shifting sands of our culture. Would anyone have even regarded what he did as “an affair” 20 years ago?
It's bullshit though - the sands haven't really shifted. Jeez, I'd have been sacked loads of times. How many people have found their spouse's via work, often while with a former partner? The puritanism of some astonishes me.
Yup. I'm married to my former manageress, with whom I had a fling at work!
As far as I can see, Schofield has done nothing illegal, so all the rest is mere value judgements based on a media circus generated by organisations that love talking about nothing but themselves.
He is one of millions of people who have met a partner at work and while the extreme junior-senior element was perhaps distasteful to some I don't see why this story is commanding so much attention.
He's left. He's gone. So presumably that's it?
It does seem like, unless there was illegality afoot, Schofield should now be left alone.
Or are the febrile media looking for a Caroline Flack redux?
Because it’s been decided that the star ‘talent’, in his 50s, f…ing the 18-year-old intern, is no longer acceptable.
Both men were over the age of consent weren’t they? What’s the point of having that law otherwise?
A sixth form girl inflagrante with her teacher would also be a case of two people being over the age of consent, but it wouldn't stop the teacher getting banged up.
I just don't believe hounding Schofield is the way forward. If he has broken the law, that is for law enforcement to determine, if he hasn't leave him alone.
Yes, exactly. In the schools case, it's presumably already illegal? AFAIK it's not illegal to shag someone at a media company. So why is this 'story' still rolling when Schofield has already left?
Re the Anglo-Saxons, if we can’t call them “Anglo-Saxons” then what do we call the Germanic invaders who took over the country in the 4th-6th century, displacing Romano-Brits and Celts?
Coz that definitely happened. We can see from place-name evidence. Everywhere
Crikey, yes. Yet again some guy posting on a discussion site completely outwits the academic establishment by spotting something all the eggheads had missed. There'll be some red faces in our universities today. Thank heaven for the Internet.
I’m actually not disputing the Woke academics here on the term (I’ve always felt “Anglo-Saxon” is slightly clumsy). I’m saying the ARGUMENT is a Woke irrelevance. In the 4th-6th century a bunch of Germanic types with a new culture and language came over to Britain and altered our gene pool and changed all the place names. That indisputably happened (you can call it an invasion or not, that’s not my point)
These people need a name. If it can’t be Anglo-Saxon then what will that name be?
As I say, only “early English” is short and pithy enough to work but that will just get the lefties even angrier
The crux of the issue, when not misrepresented by ignorant commentators, is whether the label refers to a distinct ethnic group. It does not, despite the beliefs of some who would rather it did. The reason why they would rather it did fits into the reason for it being a relevant question. Those who would seek to build their politics on a pillar of racial purity or superiority have a fatal flaw in the foundations of their ideology.
Sadly these people still exist and their reaction is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
I think that a group of people that one can call Anglo-Saxons, or English, had become a distinct ethnic group, by the middle of the 10th century, and I see nothing in the Reddit article that conflicts with that.
That's very different from saying that these people formed the basis of some kind of pure or superior race.
The same way I'd say that Germans existed at this time. They just weren't the kind of people that 19th Century German nationalists thought they were.
And do you have any evidence for this distinct ethnicity? It doesn't seem very likely to me, given the continued cultural and linguistic diversity even within England, and what we know of extant genetic differences today. There were and still are many Englands within the borders of England. The wider you cast your net to catch of England, the more readily you will scoop up that which is not and never has been England. Do you think Cumbrians were closer to Sussex folk or to people from Strathclyde? How much did the people of Whitby have in common with Oksbøl versus Oxford?
I have serious doubts about whether you could ever draw a genetic line around England and only England at any point in all of England's history.
And if given the above is true, what use could there be for persisting with the myth if not to make political mischief today? In whose interest is it to link a nation to a fictional genetic stock, other than those whose ideology is filtration and exclusion?
A Royal House whose kings called themselves Kings of England. England would be conquered in the future, but England never ceased to exist as an entity, after 960. They had a common language, a common literature, a common religion, and a common enemy.
These are what create an ethnic group. Claiming that the Anglo-Saxons did not exist as an ethnic group is like claiming that Poles, Germans, Ukrainians etc. did not.
Much of what you claim here can be disputed, though. Caxton's dilemma when choosing how to translate works he intended to print in "English" illustrates the linguistic point:
And he asked specifically for eggs, and the good woman said that she spoke no French, and the merchant got angry for he could not speak French either, but he wanted eggs and she could not understand him. And then at last another person said that he wanted ‘eyren’. Then the good woman said that she understood him well.
That is, people from the opposite ends of England often literally could not understand one another, to the extent that one of them thought the other was speaking an entirely different language! And this is from the year 1490. 1490!
The heterogeneity of England in pre-modern times is consistently underestimated, and by the time it really settles down into something that one can really start to sensibly call one ethnic group, you're already way beyond the point where England was its own thing. What of Wales, by the time Caxton was writing?
As for the common enemy... whom? When? Even when the Normans invaded, there wasn't unity, even between midlands and the south. If there had have been, the invasion might have been repelled.
The common enemy were the Danes and the Norse. The House of Wessex/England spent 150 years fighting them. As we're seeing in Ukraine, nothing does more to create a shared sense of identity than military service against an enemy attacking one's homeland.
What's the evidence for this English unity against the Norse? The Norse occupied much of England at the time of Alfred, and when Alfred stemmed the invasion of Wessex the settlement left the likes of Guthrum in power in other parts of England. Alfred was comfortable accommodating Norse rule in other parts of England as long as the Norse leadership converted to Christianity. Was there a popular clamour against this, anywhere? Did the Norse settlers in the north and east of England want a unified England? Did anybody outside the court of Wessex really care about that kind of nation building?
Farooq c. 2100: "What's the evidence for this Ukrainian unity against the Russians? The Russians occupied much of Ukraine at the time of Zelensky, who was himself a native Russian speaker. Was there a popular clamour against this, anywhere? Did the Russian settlers in the south and east of Ukraine want a unified state? Did anybody outside the US-sponsored Kiev regime really care about that kind of nation building?"
Well no, because the written evidence of what ordinary Ukrainians think about Russia's fascist imperialism is a matter of record. If you think we have that kind of documentary evidence of what a peasant farmer outside St Edmundsbury or a miller in Jorvik thought about Norse or Wessex rule you're kidding yourself. We have scant and partial evidence from that time. It's hard to elevate the records kept in Winchester to a story of a nation united to throw off the Viking yoke. You need much better evidence than you have for that kind of claim.
That's not what I was getting at but rather than you seem overly keen to dismiss any foundation for English national identity.
I don't think that the case. Rather he's pointing out that foundation myths are myth rather than history.
There was not much recognisably 'English' as now understood about this land back in 1065. Fast forward to Tudor times and there's a great deal which is.
The fact that you felt the need to insert the qualification "as now understood" undermines your point. We're talking about how people saw themselves at the time, not about what the term came to represent hundreds of years later.
And we simply don't have enough evidence to have any real idea of that for a millennium ago. Which is why myth.
I'm supremely uninterested and lack details - but why the furore? He's had an affair at work. Is that it?
I think it says a lot about the shifting sands of our culture. Would anyone have even regarded what he did as “an affair” 20 years ago?
It's bullshit though - the sands haven't really shifted. Jeez, I'd have been sacked loads of times. How many people have found their spouse's via work, often while with a former partner? The puritanism of some astonishes me.
Yup. I'm married to my former manageress, with whom I had a fling at work!
As far as I can see, Schofield has done nothing illegal, so all the rest is mere value judgements based on a media circus generated by organisations that love talking about nothing but themselves.
He is one of millions of people who have met a partner at work and while the extreme junior-senior element was perhaps distasteful to some I don't see why this story is commanding so much attention.
He's left. He's gone. So presumably that's it?
It does seem like, unless there was illegality afoot, Schofield should now be left alone.
Or are the febrile media looking for a Caroline Flack redux?
Because it’s been decided that the star ‘talent’, in his 50s, f…ing the 18-year-old intern, is no longer acceptable.
Both men were over the age of consent weren’t they? What’s the point of having that law otherwise?
A sixth form girl inflagrante with her teacher would also be a case of two people being over the age of consent, but it wouldn't stop the teacher getting banged up.
I just don't believe hounding Schofield is the way forward. If he has broken the law, that is for law enforcement to determine, if he hasn't leave him alone.
Yes, exactly. In the schools case, it's presumably already illegal? AFAIK it's not illegal to shag someone at a media company. So why is this 'story' still rolling when Schofield has already left?
Mainly its media obsessing about media. They love themselves, after all.
As to what he did wrong - I think, although he may not see it this way, it looks very like grooming. And he lied to his employers.
He also threw the poor lad under the bus in 2020. He has destroyed the cuddly, trustable Phil role for good.
He shamed himself by trying to 'out' Lord Bramall and others, live on TV. If this is the universe being nemesis to his hubris, so be it.
Re the Anglo-Saxons, if we can’t call them “Anglo-Saxons” then what do we call the Germanic invaders who took over the country in the 4th-6th century, displacing Romano-Brits and Celts?
Coz that definitely happened. We can see from place-name evidence. Everywhere
Crikey, yes. Yet again some guy posting on a discussion site completely outwits the academic establishment by spotting something all the eggheads had missed. There'll be some red faces in our universities today. Thank heaven for the Internet.
I’m actually not disputing the Woke academics here on the term (I’ve always felt “Anglo-Saxon” is slightly clumsy). I’m saying the ARGUMENT is a Woke irrelevance. In the 4th-6th century a bunch of Germanic types with a new culture and language came over to Britain and altered our gene pool and changed all the place names. That indisputably happened (you can call it an invasion or not, that’s not my point)
These people need a name. If it can’t be Anglo-Saxon then what will that name be?
As I say, only “early English” is short and pithy enough to work but that will just get the lefties even angrier
The crux of the issue, when not misrepresented by ignorant commentators, is whether the label refers to a distinct ethnic group. It does not, despite the beliefs of some who would rather it did. The reason why they would rather it did fits into the reason for it being a relevant question. Those who would seek to build their politics on a pillar of racial purity or superiority have a fatal flaw in the foundations of their ideology.
Sadly these people still exist and their reaction is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
I think that a group of people that one can call Anglo-Saxons, or English, had become a distinct ethnic group, by the middle of the 10th century, and I see nothing in the Reddit article that conflicts with that.
That's very different from saying that these people formed the basis of some kind of pure or superior race.
The same way I'd say that Germans existed at this time. They just weren't the kind of people that 19th Century German nationalists thought they were.
And do you have any evidence for this distinct ethnicity? It doesn't seem very likely to me, given the continued cultural and linguistic diversity even within England, and what we know of extant genetic differences today. There were and still are many Englands within the borders of England. The wider you cast your net to catch of England, the more readily you will scoop up that which is not and never has been England. Do you think Cumbrians were closer to Sussex folk or to people from Strathclyde? How much did the people of Whitby have in common with Oksbøl versus Oxford?
I have serious doubts about whether you could ever draw a genetic line around England and only England at any point in all of England's history.
And if given the above is true, what use could there be for persisting with the myth if not to make political mischief today? In whose interest is it to link a nation to a fictional genetic stock, other than those whose ideology is filtration and exclusion?
A Royal House whose kings called themselves Kings of England. England would be conquered in the future, but England never ceased to exist as an entity, after 960. They had a common language, a common literature, a common religion, and a common enemy.
These are what create an ethnic group. Claiming that the Anglo-Saxons did not exist as an ethnic group is like claiming that Poles, Germans, Ukrainians etc. did not.
Much of what you claim here can be disputed, though. Caxton's dilemma when choosing how to translate works he intended to print in "English" illustrates the linguistic point:
And he asked specifically for eggs, and the good woman said that she spoke no French, and the merchant got angry for he could not speak French either, but he wanted eggs and she could not understand him. And then at last another person said that he wanted ‘eyren’. Then the good woman said that she understood him well.
That is, people from the opposite ends of England often literally could not understand one another, to the extent that one of them thought the other was speaking an entirely different language! And this is from the year 1490. 1490!
The heterogeneity of England in pre-modern times is consistently underestimated, and by the time it really settles down into something that one can really start to sensibly call one ethnic group, you're already way beyond the point where England was its own thing. What of Wales, by the time Caxton was writing?
As for the common enemy... whom? When? Even when the Normans invaded, there wasn't unity, even between midlands and the south. If there had have been, the invasion might have been repelled.
The common enemy were the Danes and the Norse. The House of Wessex/England spent 150 years fighting them. As we're seeing in Ukraine, nothing does more to create a shared sense of identity than military service against an enemy attacking one's homeland.
What's the evidence for this English unity against the Norse? The Norse occupied much of England at the time of Alfred, and when Alfred stemmed the invasion of Wessex the settlement left the likes of Guthrum in power in other parts of England. Alfred was comfortable accommodating Norse rule in other parts of England as long as the Norse leadership converted to Christianity. Was there a popular clamour against this, anywhere? Did the Norse settlers in the north and east of England want a unified England? Did anybody outside the court of Wessex really care about that kind of nation building?
Farooq c. 2100: "What's the evidence for this Ukrainian unity against the Russians? The Russians occupied much of Ukraine at the time of Zelensky, who was himself a native Russian speaker. Was there a popular clamour against this, anywhere? Did the Russian settlers in the south and east of Ukraine want a unified state? Did anybody outside the US-sponsored Kiev regime really care about that kind of nation building?"
Well no, because the written evidence of what ordinary Ukrainians think about Russia's fascist imperialism is a matter of record. If you think we have that kind of documentary evidence of what a peasant farmer outside St Edmundsbury or a miller in Jorvik thought about Norse or Wessex rule you're kidding yourself. We have scant and partial evidence from that time. It's hard to elevate the records kept in Winchester to a story of a nation united to throw off the Viking yoke. You need much better evidence than you have for that kind of claim.
That's not what I was getting at but rather than you seem overly keen to dismiss any foundation for English national identity.
I don't think that the case. Rather he's pointing out that foundation myths are myth rather than history.
There was not much recognisably 'English' as now understood about this land back in 1065. Fast forward to Tudor times and there's a great deal which is.
The fact that you felt the need to insert the qualification "as now understood" undermines your point. We're talking about how people saw themselves at the time, not about what the term came to represent hundreds of years later.
I would say that overwhelmingly, the nationalism that developed from 1789 onwards was the work of lesser aristocrats, intellectuals, students, and army officers. It permeated downwards, and shared military service was a very powerful forge of national identity.
I suppose the question is whether shared military service tended to create that sense of shared identity in earlier centuries.
Bob Stewart has been charged with two public order offences after telling an activist to “go back to Bahrain” in December last year. Stewart has been accused of “using threatening or abusive words or behaviour” and “threatening or abusive words or behaviour likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress“. He’ll be up in front of Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 5th July…
The current Governor of the great State of Florida spells his surname - DeSantis.
Two capital letters. Zero space between "De" and "Santis". Do NOT leave off the "De".
Good luck with that... for all their claimed degrees and masters in whatever noble art one can care to name, PBers still routinely fail to spell the given name of the Loto and the surname of his deputy!
Re the Anglo-Saxons, if we can’t call them “Anglo-Saxons” then what do we call the Germanic invaders who took over the country in the 4th-6th century, displacing Romano-Brits and Celts?
Coz that definitely happened. We can see from place-name evidence. Everywhere
Crikey, yes. Yet again some guy posting on a discussion site completely outwits the academic establishment by spotting something all the eggheads had missed. There'll be some red faces in our universities today. Thank heaven for the Internet.
I’m actually not disputing the Woke academics here on the term (I’ve always felt “Anglo-Saxon” is slightly clumsy). I’m saying the ARGUMENT is a Woke irrelevance. In the 4th-6th century a bunch of Germanic types with a new culture and language came over to Britain and altered our gene pool and changed all the place names. That indisputably happened (you can call it an invasion or not, that’s not my point)
These people need a name. If it can’t be Anglo-Saxon then what will that name be?
As I say, only “early English” is short and pithy enough to work but that will just get the lefties even angrier
The crux of the issue, when not misrepresented by ignorant commentators, is whether the label refers to a distinct ethnic group. It does not, despite the beliefs of some who would rather it did. The reason why they would rather it did fits into the reason for it being a relevant question. Those who would seek to build their politics on a pillar of racial purity or superiority have a fatal flaw in the foundations of their ideology.
Sadly these people still exist and their reaction is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
I think that a group of people that one can call Anglo-Saxons, or English, had become a distinct ethnic group, by the middle of the 10th century, and I see nothing in the Reddit article that conflicts with that.
That's very different from saying that these people formed the basis of some kind of pure or superior race.
The same way I'd say that Germans existed at this time. They just weren't the kind of people that 19th Century German nationalists thought they were.
And do you have any evidence for this distinct ethnicity? It doesn't seem very likely to me, given the continued cultural and linguistic diversity even within England, and what we know of extant genetic differences today. There were and still are many Englands within the borders of England. The wider you cast your net to catch of England, the more readily you will scoop up that which is not and never has been England. Do you think Cumbrians were closer to Sussex folk or to people from Strathclyde? How much did the people of Whitby have in common with Oksbøl versus Oxford?
I have serious doubts about whether you could ever draw a genetic line around England and only England at any point in all of England's history.
And if given the above is true, what use could there be for persisting with the myth if not to make political mischief today? In whose interest is it to link a nation to a fictional genetic stock, other than those whose ideology is filtration and exclusion?
A Royal House whose kings called themselves Kings of England. England would be conquered in the future, but England never ceased to exist as an entity, after 960. They had a common language, a common literature, a common religion, and a common enemy.
These are what create an ethnic group. Claiming that the Anglo-Saxons did not exist as an ethnic group is like claiming that Poles, Germans, Ukrainians etc. did not.
Much of what you claim here can be disputed, though. Caxton's dilemma when choosing how to translate works he intended to print in "English" illustrates the linguistic point:
And he asked specifically for eggs, and the good woman said that she spoke no French, and the merchant got angry for he could not speak French either, but he wanted eggs and she could not understand him. And then at last another person said that he wanted ‘eyren’. Then the good woman said that she understood him well.
That is, people from the opposite ends of England often literally could not understand one another, to the extent that one of them thought the other was speaking an entirely different language! And this is from the year 1490. 1490!
The heterogeneity of England in pre-modern times is consistently underestimated, and by the time it really settles down into something that one can really start to sensibly call one ethnic group, you're already way beyond the point where England was its own thing. What of Wales, by the time Caxton was writing?
As for the common enemy... whom? When? Even when the Normans invaded, there wasn't unity, even between midlands and the south. If there had have been, the invasion might have been repelled.
The common enemy were the Danes and the Norse. The House of Wessex/England spent 150 years fighting them. As we're seeing in Ukraine, nothing does more to create a shared sense of identity than military service against an enemy attacking one's homeland.
What's the evidence for this English unity against the Norse? The Norse occupied much of England at the time of Alfred, and when Alfred stemmed the invasion of Wessex the settlement left the likes of Guthrum in power in other parts of England. Alfred was comfortable accommodating Norse rule in other parts of England as long as the Norse leadership converted to Christianity. Was there a popular clamour against this, anywhere? Did the Norse settlers in the north and east of England want a unified England? Did anybody outside the court of Wessex really care about that kind of nation building?
Farooq c. 2100: "What's the evidence for this Ukrainian unity against the Russians? The Russians occupied much of Ukraine at the time of Zelensky, who was himself a native Russian speaker. Was there a popular clamour against this, anywhere? Did the Russian settlers in the south and east of Ukraine want a unified state? Did anybody outside the US-sponsored Kiev regime really care about that kind of nation building?"
Well no, because the written evidence of what ordinary Ukrainians think about Russia's fascist imperialism is a matter of record. If you think we have that kind of documentary evidence of what a peasant farmer outside St Edmundsbury or a miller in Jorvik thought about Norse or Wessex rule you're kidding yourself. We have scant and partial evidence from that time. It's hard to elevate the records kept in Winchester to a story of a nation united to throw off the Viking yoke. You need much better evidence than you have for that kind of claim.
That's not what I was getting at but rather than you seem overly keen to dismiss any foundation for English national identity.
I don't think that the case. Rather he's pointing out that foundation myths are myth rather than history.
There was not much recognisably 'English' as now understood about this land back in 1065. Fast forward to Tudor times and there's a great deal which is.
The fact that you felt the need to insert the qualification "as now understood" undermines your point. We're talking about how people saw themselves at the time, not about what the term came to represent hundreds of years later.
We're actually talking about both: the assumptions people make about that which have no evidence for are likely a reflection of their own views, concerns, and prejudices. When we try to root the present in the past, we sometimes project the present onto the past, and the more blanks we have to fill in, the more danger there is of thinking in ahistorical ways.
I'm supremely uninterested and lack details - but why the furore? He's had an affair at work. Is that it?
I think it says a lot about the shifting sands of our culture. Would anyone have even regarded what he did as “an affair” 20 years ago?
It's bullshit though - the sands haven't really shifted. Jeez, I'd have been sacked loads of times. How many people have found their spouse's via work, often while with a former partner? The puritanism of some astonishes me.
Yup. I'm married to my former manageress, with whom I had a fling at work!
As far as I can see, Schofield has done nothing illegal, so all the rest is mere value judgements based on a media circus generated by organisations that love talking about nothing but themselves.
He is one of millions of people who have met a partner at work and while the extreme junior-senior element was perhaps distasteful to some I don't see why this story is commanding so much attention.
He's left. He's gone. So presumably that's it?
It does seem like, unless there was illegality afoot, Schofield should now be left alone.
Or are the febrile media looking for a Caroline Flack redux?
Because it’s been decided that the star ‘talent’, in his 50s, f…ing the 18-year-old intern, is no longer acceptable.
Both men were over the age of consent weren’t they? What’s the point of having that law otherwise?
A sixth form girl inflagrante with her teacher would also be a case of two people being over the age of consent, but it wouldn't stop the teacher getting banged up.
I just don't believe hounding Schofield is the way forward. If he has broken the law, that is for law enforcement to determine, if he hasn't leave him alone.
Yes, exactly. In the schools case, it's presumably already illegal? AFAIK it's not illegal to shag someone at a media company. So why is this 'story' still rolling when Schofield has already left?
Mainly its media obsessing about media. They love themselves, after all.
As to what he did wrong - I think, although he may not see it this way, it looks very like grooming. And he lied to his employers.
He also threw the poor lad under the bus in 2020. He has destroyed the cuddly, trustable Phil role for good.
He shamed himself by trying to 'out' Lord Bramall and others, live on TV. If this is the universe being nemesis to his hubris, so be it.
It media obsessing about settling scores....the media were played in 2020, they also had legal action taken against them to silence them, ITV moved on employees who they felt didn't fit their holy than thou messaging....now they are out for revenge, its not Schofield now, its the bosses in the crosshairs.
Same way as Elon owned twitter getting nearly daily hit pieces about what a horrid platform it has become etc etc etc, because all those media types feel their lovely twitter has been taken away from them by a man who they thought was one of them, with his eco values etc.
Same as phone hacking was solely focused on NOTW, not that the whole industry had engaged in it for donkeys years, and the Mirror were the Man City, to NOTW Wrexham, in terms of money spent. Only the Independent looked at the fact it was also even wider than the papers, corporations had been up to it as well.
Re the Anglo-Saxons, if we can’t call them “Anglo-Saxons” then what do we call the Germanic invaders who took over the country in the 4th-6th century, displacing Romano-Brits and Celts?
Coz that definitely happened. We can see from place-name evidence. Everywhere
Crikey, yes. Yet again some guy posting on a discussion site completely outwits the academic establishment by spotting something all the eggheads had missed. There'll be some red faces in our universities today. Thank heaven for the Internet.
I’m actually not disputing the Woke academics here on the term (I’ve always felt “Anglo-Saxon” is slightly clumsy). I’m saying the ARGUMENT is a Woke irrelevance. In the 4th-6th century a bunch of Germanic types with a new culture and language came over to Britain and altered our gene pool and changed all the place names. That indisputably happened (you can call it an invasion or not, that’s not my point)
These people need a name. If it can’t be Anglo-Saxon then what will that name be?
As I say, only “early English” is short and pithy enough to work but that will just get the lefties even angrier
The crux of the issue, when not misrepresented by ignorant commentators, is whether the label refers to a distinct ethnic group. It does not, despite the beliefs of some who would rather it did. The reason why they would rather it did fits into the reason for it being a relevant question. Those who would seek to build their politics on a pillar of racial purity or superiority have a fatal flaw in the foundations of their ideology.
Sadly these people still exist and their reaction is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
I think that a group of people that one can call Anglo-Saxons, or English, had become a distinct ethnic group, by the middle of the 10th century, and I see nothing in the Reddit article that conflicts with that.
That's very different from saying that these people formed the basis of some kind of pure or superior race.
The same way I'd say that Germans existed at this time. They just weren't the kind of people that 19th Century German nationalists thought they were.
And do you have any evidence for this distinct ethnicity? It doesn't seem very likely to me, given the continued cultural and linguistic diversity even within England, and what we know of extant genetic differences today. There were and still are many Englands within the borders of England. The wider you cast your net to catch of England, the more readily you will scoop up that which is not and never has been England. Do you think Cumbrians were closer to Sussex folk or to people from Strathclyde? How much did the people of Whitby have in common with Oksbøl versus Oxford?
I have serious doubts about whether you could ever draw a genetic line around England and only England at any point in all of England's history.
And if given the above is true, what use could there be for persisting with the myth if not to make political mischief today? In whose interest is it to link a nation to a fictional genetic stock, other than those whose ideology is filtration and exclusion?
A Royal House whose kings called themselves Kings of England. England would be conquered in the future, but England never ceased to exist as an entity, after 960. They had a common language, a common literature, a common religion, and a common enemy.
These are what create an ethnic group. Claiming that the Anglo-Saxons did not exist as an ethnic group is like claiming that Poles, Germans, Ukrainians etc. did not.
Much of what you claim here can be disputed, though. Caxton's dilemma when choosing how to translate works he intended to print in "English" illustrates the linguistic point:
And he asked specifically for eggs, and the good woman said that she spoke no French, and the merchant got angry for he could not speak French either, but he wanted eggs and she could not understand him. And then at last another person said that he wanted ‘eyren’. Then the good woman said that she understood him well.
That is, people from the opposite ends of England often literally could not understand one another, to the extent that one of them thought the other was speaking an entirely different language! And this is from the year 1490. 1490!
The heterogeneity of England in pre-modern times is consistently underestimated, and by the time it really settles down into something that one can really start to sensibly call one ethnic group, you're already way beyond the point where England was its own thing. What of Wales, by the time Caxton was writing?
As for the common enemy... whom? When? Even when the Normans invaded, there wasn't unity, even between midlands and the south. If there had have been, the invasion might have been repelled.
The common enemy were the Danes and the Norse. The House of Wessex/England spent 150 years fighting them. As we're seeing in Ukraine, nothing does more to create a shared sense of identity than military service against an enemy attacking one's homeland.
What's the evidence for this English unity against the Norse? The Norse occupied much of England at the time of Alfred, and when Alfred stemmed the invasion of Wessex the settlement left the likes of Guthrum in power in other parts of England. Alfred was comfortable accommodating Norse rule in other parts of England as long as the Norse leadership converted to Christianity. Was there a popular clamour against this, anywhere? Did the Norse settlers in the north and east of England want a unified England? Did anybody outside the court of Wessex really care about that kind of nation building?
Farooq c. 2100: "What's the evidence for this Ukrainian unity against the Russians? The Russians occupied much of Ukraine at the time of Zelensky, who was himself a native Russian speaker. Was there a popular clamour against this, anywhere? Did the Russian settlers in the south and east of Ukraine want a unified state? Did anybody outside the US-sponsored Kiev regime really care about that kind of nation building?"
Well no, because the written evidence of what ordinary Ukrainians think about Russia's fascist imperialism is a matter of record. If you think we have that kind of documentary evidence of what a peasant farmer outside St Edmundsbury or a miller in Jorvik thought about Norse or Wessex rule you're kidding yourself. We have scant and partial evidence from that time. It's hard to elevate the records kept in Winchester to a story of a nation united to throw off the Viking yoke. You need much better evidence than you have for that kind of claim.
That's not what I was getting at but rather than you seem overly keen to dismiss any foundation for English national identity.
I don't think that the case. Rather he's pointing out that foundation myths are myth rather than history.
There was not much recognisably 'English' as now understood about this land back in 1065. Fast forward to Tudor times and there's a great deal which is.
The fact that you felt the need to insert the qualification "as now understood" undermines your point. We're talking about how people saw themselves at the time, not about what the term came to represent hundreds of years later.
The problem is when people conflate the last two. We know a bit about what literate folk thought at the time. For example, we know that language and religion were considered to separate different peoples as far back as Genesis. So you had an idea of the existence of an English people long before Alfred. However, there are two caveats. In general they identify the English people based on language and geography, not other cultural concepts and indeed including people we'd see today as Scottish. And many of the sources wrongly infer English characteristics from things that are only true in their locality.
As ever, the headline doesn't reflect the reality of the story:
He added: “I’m not trying to create any scaremongering, and I want to emphasise that not all 6,000 multi-storey car parks across the UK have to be closed.
“It’s only the very old ones, built in the 60s and 70s, which are in a very poor state of repair and have weakened over time which will probably need to have some work done to them.
Basically the title should be "Heavy cars too heavy for old multi-story car parks".
One thing I noticed using a couple of multistorey car parks recently was that where the ramps had bidirectional traffic you were directed to drive on the right not the left, which felt like it was a recipe for accidents. I wondered whether they were bought off the shelf based on US or continental designs. Both the offending car parks were in Leeds IIRC so maybe it is a Yorkshire thing.
There’s a couple of terrible turnings/u-turns near me, both in a break in the middle section of dual carriageways, where you’re suddenly, briefly, forced to drive on the *wrong* side of the road.
I don’t know why they do it. I guess it was the cheapest solution, using the least amount of tarmac/space.
For an IT person, I'm someone who has been supremely unfused by a lot of elements of IT as an end user - here's another Windows laptop, here's Chrome, here's IE - OK, no bother, I can generally do my job 99% of the day with mind to keyboard as the limiting performance factor. Some websites do better on Chrome, some prefer Edge, Bing increasingly gives similar results as Google, which wasn't what happened on a few years ago. Firefox or a.n.other, why pose, just go with what is in front of you.
But Edge my word - nicey, nicey Corporate home pages are increasingly gone, the configurability has reduced and the force feeding of MSN aggregated horse shit is barely tolerable. I mean, you can get the same, marginally better quality, stuff from Chrome but it is more buried.
It's crept up on me, but I need to get away from it now.
I wonder how many are passively getting their worldview Mailified.
Wheel menu thingy (not the three dots) > content > content off.
Re the Anglo-Saxons, if we can’t call them “Anglo-Saxons” then what do we call the Germanic invaders who took over the country in the 4th-6th century, displacing Romano-Brits and Celts?
Coz that definitely happened. We can see from place-name evidence. Everywhere
Crikey, yes. Yet again some guy posting on a discussion site completely outwits the academic establishment by spotting something all the eggheads had missed. There'll be some red faces in our universities today. Thank heaven for the Internet.
I’m actually not disputing the Woke academics here on the term (I’ve always felt “Anglo-Saxon” is slightly clumsy). I’m saying the ARGUMENT is a Woke irrelevance. In the 4th-6th century a bunch of Germanic types with a new culture and language came over to Britain and altered our gene pool and changed all the place names. That indisputably happened (you can call it an invasion or not, that’s not my point)
These people need a name. If it can’t be Anglo-Saxon then what will that name be?
As I say, only “early English” is short and pithy enough to work but that will just get the lefties even angrier
The crux of the issue, when not misrepresented by ignorant commentators, is whether the label refers to a distinct ethnic group. It does not, despite the beliefs of some who would rather it did. The reason why they would rather it did fits into the reason for it being a relevant question. Those who would seek to build their politics on a pillar of racial purity or superiority have a fatal flaw in the foundations of their ideology.
Sadly these people still exist and their reaction is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
I think that a group of people that one can call Anglo-Saxons, or English, had become a distinct ethnic group, by the middle of the 10th century, and I see nothing in the Reddit article that conflicts with that.
That's very different from saying that these people formed the basis of some kind of pure or superior race.
The same way I'd say that Germans existed at this time. They just weren't the kind of people that 19th Century German nationalists thought they were.
And do you have any evidence for this distinct ethnicity? It doesn't seem very likely to me, given the continued cultural and linguistic diversity even within England, and what we know of extant genetic differences today. There were and still are many Englands within the borders of England. The wider you cast your net to catch of England, the more readily you will scoop up that which is not and never has been England. Do you think Cumbrians were closer to Sussex folk or to people from Strathclyde? How much did the people of Whitby have in common with Oksbøl versus Oxford?
I have serious doubts about whether you could ever draw a genetic line around England and only England at any point in all of England's history.
And if given the above is true, what use could there be for persisting with the myth if not to make political mischief today? In whose interest is it to link a nation to a fictional genetic stock, other than those whose ideology is filtration and exclusion?
A Royal House whose kings called themselves Kings of England. England would be conquered in the future, but England never ceased to exist as an entity, after 960. They had a common language, a common literature, a common religion, and a common enemy.
These are what create an ethnic group. Claiming that the Anglo-Saxons did not exist as an ethnic group is like claiming that Poles, Germans, Ukrainians etc. did not.
Much of what you claim here can be disputed, though. Caxton's dilemma when choosing how to translate works he intended to print in "English" illustrates the linguistic point:
And he asked specifically for eggs, and the good woman said that she spoke no French, and the merchant got angry for he could not speak French either, but he wanted eggs and she could not understand him. And then at last another person said that he wanted ‘eyren’. Then the good woman said that she understood him well.
That is, people from the opposite ends of England often literally could not understand one another, to the extent that one of them thought the other was speaking an entirely different language! And this is from the year 1490. 1490!
The heterogeneity of England in pre-modern times is consistently underestimated, and by the time it really settles down into something that one can really start to sensibly call one ethnic group, you're already way beyond the point where England was its own thing. What of Wales, by the time Caxton was writing?
As for the common enemy... whom? When? Even when the Normans invaded, there wasn't unity, even between midlands and the south. If there had have been, the invasion might have been repelled.
The common enemy were the Danes and the Norse. The House of Wessex/England spent 150 years fighting them. As we're seeing in Ukraine, nothing does more to create a shared sense of identity than military service against an enemy attacking one's homeland.
What's the evidence for this English unity against the Norse? The Norse occupied much of England at the time of Alfred, and when Alfred stemmed the invasion of Wessex the settlement left the likes of Guthrum in power in other parts of England. Alfred was comfortable accommodating Norse rule in other parts of England as long as the Norse leadership converted to Christianity. Was there a popular clamour against this, anywhere? Did the Norse settlers in the north and east of England want a unified England? Did anybody outside the court of Wessex really care about that kind of nation building?
Farooq c. 2100: "What's the evidence for this Ukrainian unity against the Russians? The Russians occupied much of Ukraine at the time of Zelensky, who was himself a native Russian speaker. Was there a popular clamour against this, anywhere? Did the Russian settlers in the south and east of Ukraine want a unified state? Did anybody outside the US-sponsored Kiev regime really care about that kind of nation building?"
Well no, because the written evidence of what ordinary Ukrainians think about Russia's fascist imperialism is a matter of record. If you think we have that kind of documentary evidence of what a peasant farmer outside St Edmundsbury or a miller in Jorvik thought about Norse or Wessex rule you're kidding yourself. We have scant and partial evidence from that time. It's hard to elevate the records kept in Winchester to a story of a nation united to throw off the Viking yoke. You need much better evidence than you have for that kind of claim.
That's not what I was getting at but rather than you seem overly keen to dismiss any foundation for English national identity.
I don't think that the case. Rather he's pointing out that foundation myths are myth rather than history.
There was not much recognisably 'English' as now understood about this land back in 1065. Fast forward to Tudor times and there's a great deal which is.
The fact that you felt the need to insert the qualification "as now understood" undermines your point. We're talking about how people saw themselves at the time, not about what the term came to represent hundreds of years later.
We're actually talking about both: the assumptions people make about that which have no evidence for are likely a reflection of their own views, concerns, and prejudices. When we try to root the present in the past, we sometimes project the present onto the past, and the more blanks we have to fill in, the more danger there is of thinking in ahistorical ways.
One example of thinking in ahistorical ways is forgetting that the lives people lived were just as real as ours. A lack of sufficient evidence means we can only make educated guesses about certain things, but that does not make them mythical.
I'm supremely uninterested and lack details - but why the furore? He's had an affair at work. Is that it?
(1) He had an affair at work, (2) with someone much younger than him, (3) who's career he had helped beforehand, and (4) he lied about it when confronted. I think the difficult questions are particularly around (3): did he happen to help the person's career and then they found themselves together, or was he helping the person's career in order to facilitate a future liaison? I can't see any actual evidence to support the latter, as I've not been following this at all closely, but I understand that's the gist of it!
I think tbh there is some truth to this being seen somewhat differently because it's same sex, and therefore can't just be shooed away with 'always an eye for the ladies, boys will be boys' or whatever.
That said, there is something a bit off with someone in their fifties making online friendships with teenagers who they later to go on to have an affair with. The half your age plus seven rule applies. But I do think it wouldn't be as plastered everywhere if the teen in question had been female.
It's been an open secret for so long as well that most journos have been dying to get it out of their system.
(unlike the mystery Finland Rumour on here that I've never understood).
Re the Anglo-Saxons, if we can’t call them “Anglo-Saxons” then what do we call the Germanic invaders who took over the country in the 4th-6th century, displacing Romano-Brits and Celts?
Coz that definitely happened. We can see from place-name evidence. Everywhere
Crikey, yes. Yet again some guy posting on a discussion site completely outwits the academic establishment by spotting something all the eggheads had missed. There'll be some red faces in our universities today. Thank heaven for the Internet.
I’m actually not disputing the Woke academics here on the term (I’ve always felt “Anglo-Saxon” is slightly clumsy). I’m saying the ARGUMENT is a Woke irrelevance. In the 4th-6th century a bunch of Germanic types with a new culture and language came over to Britain and altered our gene pool and changed all the place names. That indisputably happened (you can call it an invasion or not, that’s not my point)
These people need a name. If it can’t be Anglo-Saxon then what will that name be?
As I say, only “early English” is short and pithy enough to work but that will just get the lefties even angrier
The crux of the issue, when not misrepresented by ignorant commentators, is whether the label refers to a distinct ethnic group. It does not, despite the beliefs of some who would rather it did. The reason why they would rather it did fits into the reason for it being a relevant question. Those who would seek to build their politics on a pillar of racial purity or superiority have a fatal flaw in the foundations of their ideology.
Sadly these people still exist and their reaction is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
I think that a group of people that one can call Anglo-Saxons, or English, had become a distinct ethnic group, by the middle of the 10th century, and I see nothing in the Reddit article that conflicts with that.
That's very different from saying that these people formed the basis of some kind of pure or superior race.
The same way I'd say that Germans existed at this time. They just weren't the kind of people that 19th Century German nationalists thought they were.
And do you have any evidence for this distinct ethnicity? It doesn't seem very likely to me, given the continued cultural and linguistic diversity even within England, and what we know of extant genetic differences today. There were and still are many Englands within the borders of England. The wider you cast your net to catch of England, the more readily you will scoop up that which is not and never has been England. Do you think Cumbrians were closer to Sussex folk or to people from Strathclyde? How much did the people of Whitby have in common with Oksbøl versus Oxford?
I have serious doubts about whether you could ever draw a genetic line around England and only England at any point in all of England's history.
And if given the above is true, what use could there be for persisting with the myth if not to make political mischief today? In whose interest is it to link a nation to a fictional genetic stock, other than those whose ideology is filtration and exclusion?
A Royal House whose kings called themselves Kings of England. England would be conquered in the future, but England never ceased to exist as an entity, after 960. They had a common language, a common literature, a common religion, and a common enemy.
These are what create an ethnic group. Claiming that the Anglo-Saxons did not exist as an ethnic group is like claiming that Poles, Germans, Ukrainians etc. did not.
Much of what you claim here can be disputed, though. Caxton's dilemma when choosing how to translate works he intended to print in "English" illustrates the linguistic point:
And he asked specifically for eggs, and the good woman said that she spoke no French, and the merchant got angry for he could not speak French either, but he wanted eggs and she could not understand him. And then at last another person said that he wanted ‘eyren’. Then the good woman said that she understood him well.
That is, people from the opposite ends of England often literally could not understand one another, to the extent that one of them thought the other was speaking an entirely different language! And this is from the year 1490. 1490!
The heterogeneity of England in pre-modern times is consistently underestimated, and by the time it really settles down into something that one can really start to sensibly call one ethnic group, you're already way beyond the point where England was its own thing. What of Wales, by the time Caxton was writing?
As for the common enemy... whom? When? Even when the Normans invaded, there wasn't unity, even between midlands and the south. If there had have been, the invasion might have been repelled.
The common enemy were the Danes and the Norse. The House of Wessex/England spent 150 years fighting them. As we're seeing in Ukraine, nothing does more to create a shared sense of identity than military service against an enemy attacking one's homeland.
What's the evidence for this English unity against the Norse? The Norse occupied much of England at the time of Alfred, and when Alfred stemmed the invasion of Wessex the settlement left the likes of Guthrum in power in other parts of England. Alfred was comfortable accommodating Norse rule in other parts of England as long as the Norse leadership converted to Christianity. Was there a popular clamour against this, anywhere? Did the Norse settlers in the north and east of England want a unified England? Did anybody outside the court of Wessex really care about that kind of nation building?
Farooq c. 2100: "What's the evidence for this Ukrainian unity against the Russians? The Russians occupied much of Ukraine at the time of Zelensky, who was himself a native Russian speaker. Was there a popular clamour against this, anywhere? Did the Russian settlers in the south and east of Ukraine want a unified state? Did anybody outside the US-sponsored Kiev regime really care about that kind of nation building?"
Well no, because the written evidence of what ordinary Ukrainians think about Russia's fascist imperialism is a matter of record. If you think we have that kind of documentary evidence of what a peasant farmer outside St Edmundsbury or a miller in Jorvik thought about Norse or Wessex rule you're kidding yourself. We have scant and partial evidence from that time. It's hard to elevate the records kept in Winchester to a story of a nation united to throw off the Viking yoke. You need much better evidence than you have for that kind of claim.
That's not what I was getting at but rather than you seem overly keen to dismiss any foundation for English national identity.
I don't think that the case. Rather he's pointing out that foundation myths are myth rather than history.
There was not much recognisably 'English' as now understood about this land back in 1065. Fast forward to Tudor times and there's a great deal which is.
The fact that you felt the need to insert the qualification "as now understood" undermines your point. We're talking about how people saw themselves at the time, not about what the term came to represent hundreds of years later.
The problem is when people conflate the last two. We know a bit about what literate folk thought at the time. For example, we know that language and religion were considered to separate different peoples as far back as Genesis. So you had an idea of the existence of an English people long before Alfred. However, there are two caveats. In general they identify the English people based on language and geography, not other cultural concepts and indeed including people we'd see today as Scottish. And many of the sources wrongly infer English characteristics from things that are only true in their locality.
It's why I find Liberal German nationalism in C19th such a good example of this. Arminius was virtually forgotten, until German nationalists turned him into a national hero. War with Frenchmen and other degenerate Latins was seen as the hallmark of what it meant to be a German, ignoring the huge number of Germanic peoples who lived within the bounds of the Roman empire, or who had served in the French and Spanish armies over the centuries. Unlike the Nazis, they saw Poles as worthy to be made into Germans (but ignoring Polish wishes).
You were a German, where every German was named "Freund", and every Frenchman was named "Fiend".
Despite this invented history, I'd still argue that Germans, as a distinct ethnic group, existed long before the 19th century.
I'm supremely uninterested and lack details - but why the furore? He's had an affair at work. Is that it?
I think it says a lot about the shifting sands of our culture. Would anyone have even regarded what he did as “an affair” 20 years ago?
It's bullshit though - the sands haven't really shifted. Jeez, I'd have been sacked loads of times. How many people have found their spouse's via work, often while with a former partner? The puritanism of some astonishes me.
Yup. I'm married to my former manageress, with whom I had a fling at work!
As far as I can see, Schofield has done nothing illegal, so all the rest is mere value judgements based on a media circus generated by organisations that love talking about nothing but themselves.
He is one of millions of people who have met a partner at work and while the extreme junior-senior element was perhaps distasteful to some I don't see why this story is commanding so much attention.
He's left. He's gone. So presumably that's it?
It does seem like, unless there was illegality afoot, Schofield should now be left alone.
Or are the febrile media looking for a Caroline Flack redux?
Because it’s been decided that the star ‘talent’, in his 50s, f…ing the 18-year-old intern, is no longer acceptable.
Both men were over the age of consent weren’t they? What’s the point of having that law otherwise?
A sixth form girl inflagrante with her teacher would also be a case of two people being over the age of consent, but it wouldn't stop the teacher getting banged up.
I just don't believe hounding Schofield is the way forward. If he has broken the law, that is for law enforcement to determine, if he hasn't leave him alone.
The problem here appears to be that the fellow teacher, head of department, deputy head, head teacher, school board, and local education authority, all knew about the relationship, realised it was bad, and conspired to cover it up.
Once again, assuming no law was broken I don't see the problem. Covering up a non-illegal act isn't really a cover up.
Now if the allusion here is there was illegality and that illegality was covered up that is a more serious story.
I think the whole circus surrounding Schofield needs to wind its neck in somewhat.
Mind you I also think his PR made a real blunder with the photo op of him with his frail old Mother yesterday. The cynicism of the responses was not misplaced.
I'm supremely uninterested and lack details - but why the furore? He's had an affair at work. Is that it?
I think it says a lot about the shifting sands of our culture. Would anyone have even regarded what he did as “an affair” 20 years ago?
It's bullshit though - the sands haven't really shifted. Jeez, I'd have been sacked loads of times. How many people have found their spouse's via work, often while with a former partner? The puritanism of some astonishes me.
Yup. I'm married to my former manageress, with whom I had a fling at work!
As far as I can see, Schofield has done nothing illegal, so all the rest is mere value judgements based on a media circus generated by organisations that love talking about nothing but themselves.
He is one of millions of people who have met a partner at work and while the extreme junior-senior element was perhaps distasteful to some I don't see why this story is commanding so much attention.
He's left. He's gone. So presumably that's it?
It does seem like, unless there was illegality afoot, Schofield should now be left alone.
Or are the febrile media looking for a Caroline Flack redux?
Because it’s been decided that the star ‘talent’, in his 50s, f…ing the 18-year-old intern, is no longer acceptable.
Both men were over the age of consent weren’t they? What’s the point of having that law otherwise?
Power differentials - it is a sacking offence in every company I know of to have an affair with someone in the reporting line.
What you are supposed to do is report it to HR, so one person gets moved to a different department.
Re the Anglo-Saxons, if we can’t call them “Anglo-Saxons” then what do we call the Germanic invaders who took over the country in the 4th-6th century, displacing Romano-Brits and Celts?
Coz that definitely happened. We can see from place-name evidence. Everywhere
Crikey, yes. Yet again some guy posting on a discussion site completely outwits the academic establishment by spotting something all the eggheads had missed. There'll be some red faces in our universities today. Thank heaven for the Internet.
I’m actually not disputing the Woke academics here on the term (I’ve always felt “Anglo-Saxon” is slightly clumsy). I’m saying the ARGUMENT is a Woke irrelevance. In the 4th-6th century a bunch of Germanic types with a new culture and language came over to Britain and altered our gene pool and changed all the place names. That indisputably happened (you can call it an invasion or not, that’s not my point)
These people need a name. If it can’t be Anglo-Saxon then what will that name be?
As I say, only “early English” is short and pithy enough to work but that will just get the lefties even angrier
The crux of the issue, when not misrepresented by ignorant commentators, is whether the label refers to a distinct ethnic group. It does not, despite the beliefs of some who would rather it did. The reason why they would rather it did fits into the reason for it being a relevant question. Those who would seek to build their politics on a pillar of racial purity or superiority have a fatal flaw in the foundations of their ideology.
Sadly these people still exist and their reaction is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
I think that a group of people that one can call Anglo-Saxons, or English, had become a distinct ethnic group, by the middle of the 10th century, and I see nothing in the Reddit article that conflicts with that.
That's very different from saying that these people formed the basis of some kind of pure or superior race.
The same way I'd say that Germans existed at this time. They just weren't the kind of people that 19th Century German nationalists thought they were.
And do you have any evidence for this distinct ethnicity? It doesn't seem very likely to me, given the continued cultural and linguistic diversity even within England, and what we know of extant genetic differences today. There were and still are many Englands within the borders of England. The wider you cast your net to catch of England, the more readily you will scoop up that which is not and never has been England. Do you think Cumbrians were closer to Sussex folk or to people from Strathclyde? How much did the people of Whitby have in common with Oksbøl versus Oxford?
I have serious doubts about whether you could ever draw a genetic line around England and only England at any point in all of England's history.
And if given the above is true, what use could there be for persisting with the myth if not to make political mischief today? In whose interest is it to link a nation to a fictional genetic stock, other than those whose ideology is filtration and exclusion?
A Royal House whose kings called themselves Kings of England. England would be conquered in the future, but England never ceased to exist as an entity, after 960. They had a common language, a common literature, a common religion, and a common enemy.
These are what create an ethnic group. Claiming that the Anglo-Saxons did not exist as an ethnic group is like claiming that Poles, Germans, Ukrainians etc. did not.
Much of what you claim here can be disputed, though. Caxton's dilemma when choosing how to translate works he intended to print in "English" illustrates the linguistic point:
And he asked specifically for eggs, and the good woman said that she spoke no French, and the merchant got angry for he could not speak French either, but he wanted eggs and she could not understand him. And then at last another person said that he wanted ‘eyren’. Then the good woman said that she understood him well.
That is, people from the opposite ends of England often literally could not understand one another, to the extent that one of them thought the other was speaking an entirely different language! And this is from the year 1490. 1490!
The heterogeneity of England in pre-modern times is consistently underestimated, and by the time it really settles down into something that one can really start to sensibly call one ethnic group, you're already way beyond the point where England was its own thing. What of Wales, by the time Caxton was writing?
As for the common enemy... whom? When? Even when the Normans invaded, there wasn't unity, even between midlands and the south. If there had have been, the invasion might have been repelled.
The common enemy were the Danes and the Norse. The House of Wessex/England spent 150 years fighting them. As we're seeing in Ukraine, nothing does more to create a shared sense of identity than military service against an enemy attacking one's homeland.
What's the evidence for this English unity against the Norse? The Norse occupied much of England at the time of Alfred, and when Alfred stemmed the invasion of Wessex the settlement left the likes of Guthrum in power in other parts of England. Alfred was comfortable accommodating Norse rule in other parts of England as long as the Norse leadership converted to Christianity. Was there a popular clamour against this, anywhere? Did the Norse settlers in the north and east of England want a unified England? Did anybody outside the court of Wessex really care about that kind of nation building?
Farooq c. 2100: "What's the evidence for this Ukrainian unity against the Russians? The Russians occupied much of Ukraine at the time of Zelensky, who was himself a native Russian speaker. Was there a popular clamour against this, anywhere? Did the Russian settlers in the south and east of Ukraine want a unified state? Did anybody outside the US-sponsored Kiev regime really care about that kind of nation building?"
Well no, because the written evidence of what ordinary Ukrainians think about Russia's fascist imperialism is a matter of record. If you think we have that kind of documentary evidence of what a peasant farmer outside St Edmundsbury or a miller in Jorvik thought about Norse or Wessex rule you're kidding yourself. We have scant and partial evidence from that time. It's hard to elevate the records kept in Winchester to a story of a nation united to throw off the Viking yoke. You need much better evidence than you have for that kind of claim.
That's not what I was getting at but rather than you seem overly keen to dismiss any foundation for English national identity.
I don't think that the case. Rather he's pointing out that foundation myths are myth rather than history.
There was not much recognisably 'English' as now understood about this land back in 1065. Fast forward to Tudor times and there's a great deal which is.
The fact that you felt the need to insert the qualification "as now understood" undermines your point. We're talking about how people saw themselves at the time, not about what the term came to represent hundreds of years later.
The problem is when people conflate the last two. We know a bit about what literate folk thought at the time. For example, we know that language and religion were considered to separate different peoples as far back as Genesis. So you had an idea of the existence of an English people long before Alfred. However, there are two caveats. In general they identify the English people based on language and geography, not other cultural concepts and indeed including people we'd see today as Scottish. And many of the sources wrongly infer English characteristics from things that are only true in their locality.
It's why I find Liberal German nationalism in C19th such a good example of this. Arminius was virtually forgotten, until German nationalists turned him into a national hero. War with Frenchmen and other degenerate Latins was seen as the hallmark of what it meant to be a German, ignoring the huge number of Germanic peoples who lived within the bounds of the Roman empire, or who had served in the French and Spanish armies over the centuries. Unlike the Nazis, they saw Poles as worthy to be made into Germans (but ignoring Polish wishes).
You were a German, where every German was named "Freund", and every Frenchman was named "Fiend".
Despite this invented history, I'd still argue that Germans, as a distinct ethnic group, existed long before the 19th century.
By that time surely, someone from Hamburg could conversed with someone from Munich, and bring somebody else from Leipzig into the conversation. Mind, the same applies to someone from Vienna.
I'm supremely uninterested and lack details - but why the furore? He's had an affair at work. Is that it?
I think it says a lot about the shifting sands of our culture. Would anyone have even regarded what he did as “an affair” 20 years ago?
It's bullshit though - the sands haven't really shifted. Jeez, I'd have been sacked loads of times. How many people have found their spouse's via work, often while with a former partner? The puritanism of some astonishes me.
Yup. I'm married to my former manageress, with whom I had a fling at work!
As far as I can see, Schofield has done nothing illegal, so all the rest is mere value judgements based on a media circus generated by organisations that love talking about nothing but themselves.
He is one of millions of people who have met a partner at work and while the extreme junior-senior element was perhaps distasteful to some I don't see why this story is commanding so much attention.
He's left. He's gone. So presumably that's it?
It does seem like, unless there was illegality afoot, Schofield should now be left alone.
Or are the febrile media looking for a Caroline Flack redux?
Because it’s been decided that the star ‘talent’, in his 50s, f…ing the 18-year-old intern, is no longer acceptable.
Both men were over the age of consent weren’t they? What’s the point of having that law otherwise?
Power differentials - it is a sacking offence in every company I know of to have an affair with someone in the reporting line.
What you are supposed to do is report it to HR, so one person gets moved to a different department.
Isn't that rather unfair on Chief Executives? Who are they supposed to have affairs with?
I'm supremely uninterested and lack details - but why the furore? He's had an affair at work. Is that it?
(1) He had an affair at work, (2) with someone much younger than him, (3) who's career he had helped beforehand, and (4) he lied about it when confronted. I think the difficult questions are particularly around (3): did he happen to help the person's career and then they found themselves together, or was he helping the person's career in order to facilitate a future liaison? I can't see any actual evidence to support the latter, as I've not been following this at all closely, but I understand that's the gist of it!
I think tbh there is some truth to this being seen somewhat differently because it's same sex, and therefore can't just be shooed away with 'always an eye for the ladies, boys will be boys' or whatever.
That said, there is something a bit off with someone in their fifties making online friendships with teenagers who they later to go on to have an affair with. The half your age plus seven rule applies. But I do think it wouldn't be as plastered everywhere if the teen in question had been female.
It's been an open secret for so long as well that most journos have been dying to get it out of their system.
(unlike the mystery Finland Rumour on here that I've never understood).
Also - as one of those poor sods who spends all his time on pb actually has to work for a living, I have never watched a single minute of Phil and Holly on the Sofa, and basically couldn't give a stuff that he has been sacked, other than the sheer fun of seeing yet another hypocrite exposed...
Is there any other surname in the history of surnames wherein there are two capitals?
DeSantis is going full on tech start-up.
Edit: McX I suppose
Quite a few Italian Americans did the same, e.g. the jazz musician Joey DeFrancesco, the podcaster Perry DeAngelis or there's a Dem politician called Wayne DeAngelo.
I'm supremely uninterested and lack details - but why the furore? He's had an affair at work. Is that it?
(1) He had an affair at work, (2) with someone much younger than him, (3) who's career he had helped beforehand, and (4) he lied about it when confronted. I think the difficult questions are particularly around (3): did he happen to help the person's career and then they found themselves together, or was he helping the person's career in order to facilitate a future liaison? I can't see any actual evidence to support the latter, as I've not been following this at all closely, but I understand that's the gist of it!
I think tbh there is some truth to this being seen somewhat differently because it's same sex, and therefore can't just be shooed away with 'always an eye for the ladies, boys will be boys' or whatever.
That said, there is something a bit off with someone in their fifties making online friendships with teenagers who they later to go on to have an affair with. The half your age plus seven rule applies. But I do think it wouldn't be as plastered everywhere if the teen in question had been female.
It's been an open secret for so long as well that most journos have been dying to get it out of their system.
(unlike the mystery Finland Rumour on here that I've never understood).
Also - as one of those poor sods who spends all his time on pb actually has to work for a living, I have never watched a single minute of Phil and Holly on the Sofa, and basically couldn't give a stuff that he has been sacked, other than the sheer fun of seeing yet another hypocrite exposed...
It's an interesting window into media life for the prurient I think. Of course he was having this affair, of course ITV was well aware. 'Keep the talent happy'. Then you have the interesting spectacle of other TV personalities, most with their own skeletons, solemnly emoting about the 'betrayal', all the while hoping their own peccadilloes aren't next in the firing line.
One thing people have missed on SUVs - there are loopholes in US law for "work vehicles" around emissions and pedestrian safety.
So US manufacturers have simply marketed massive cars to the masses to get around these regulations, with all the negative effects that brings. It's why child pedestrian deaths have rocketed in the US - drivers can't see over the bonnet. Then you have road wear and tear, emissions, parking...
You really think Reddit is a source of top historians?
Anglo Saxons certainly were an accepted group, from the Saxon coast in Germany and Anglia in southern Denmark
That first reddit post seems rather disjointed to me. Perhaps a better question may be:
Did the Angles and Saxons see *themselves* as a distinct ethnic group / groups?
Compared to the Romano British and Celts and later the Normans, absolutely
Not sure we’re any more likely to get the nuanced discussion this debate requires on pb.com any more than on Reddit or in the Telegraph (though it is nice to see the latter featuring a story which isn’t on trans, though who knows: ‘what is an Anglo-Saxon woman?’ may be the next brainwave)
The idea that people in dark ages Europe (especially at the fringes of Rome and beyond) considered themselves as belonging to ethnic groups in the way we define them today really is debatable. That it remained a defined and coherent identity till more or less the present day, is quite a stretch, especially given the pot-pourri of genetic and cultural admixture over the centuries since. ‘English’ is a much more helpful term than ‘Anglo-Saxon’. I am unquestionably the former, but it would be a huge stretch to define me as the latter.
England didn't emerge as anything approaching a nation until Athelstan in the 10th century.
The Anglo Saxons arrived in the 8th century, so for historians Anglo Saxon and the Anglo Saxon Kingdoms of Mercia, Northumbria and Wessex and Kent, Essex, Sussex and East Anglia remain very useful terms for describing that period
I think we’re talking at cross purposes here. My point is really that ‘Anglo-Saxon’ is a useless term applied in a modern context. I agree that it’s reasonably sensible to use it it in the context of 8th century history etc.
But HYUFD told us recently about the Anglo-Saxon countries today, about how the US, Denmark etc. are all the same, or something…
Anglo Saxons originally came from Germany and Denmark, they then moved to England displacing the Celts, who retreated largely to Wales and parts of Cornwall and Romano British (with some Normans later added on top at the elite aristocratic end) and the English then formed the bulk of the British colonisers of North America (where even today most Americans have ancestry from Germany or Britain and most Australians and New Zealanders and Canadians outside Quebec British ancestry too).
Utterly wrong. For a start there was no distinction between 'Celts' and Romano-British. By the time of the Germanic migrations they were the same thing. Secondly all the evidence is that there was complete integration between the Germanic migrants and the Romano-British. This is shown time and time again across the country by archaeoleogy. Moreover the Germanic migrants had been in Britain living alongside the Romano-British since at least the end of the 3rd century. Indeed it is likely that it was they who maintained the veneer of Roman civilisation along the Thames valley for more than half a century after the withdrawal of direct Imperial control.
Nor did the Anglo-Saxons 'arrive' in the 8th century. As I said, the Germanic tribes - Angles, Saxons, Jutes and others had been arriving in Britain since the 3rd century and in significant numbers since the early 5th century.
And Offa referred to himself as Rex Anglorum more than 150 years before Aethelstan. Bede refers to 'The English' in the early 8th century.
Fascinating, Richard. Thank you.
So this 'boat people' problem we are experiencing is not a new phenomenon then?
Not at all. And in much the same way, the 'invasions' were a myth in the Early Medieval Period just as much as they are now.
I was always supportive of the "there was no large scale migration" theory. And I still am.
However, my confidence was somewhat shaken by this paper from the Max Planck Institute last Autumn.
The migrations were not a myth. The idea that they were an 'invasion' or a conquest is a myth - in my view.
We know that there were large scale migrations. What is changing is our view of the nature of those migrations.
Even so, look at a site like West Heslerton in Yorkshire. The cemetery there which dates to the migration period contained over 200 burials in the classical 'Anglian' style. And yet when they were tested using Oxygen and Strontium isotope testing of the teeth, only one was found to have grown up outside the British Isles.
Oh, sure - sorry. I did mistake that completely! Yes; I completely agree with this perspective. The only nuance is in what you mean by "large scale".
Large enough to become the dominant cultural influence - certainly. What surprises me is that it seems that it was large enough to become the dominant genetic heritage, very rapidly.
It depends on what they were assimilating into. One of the theories which seems to be backed up by both archaeology and genetics is that the Germanic migrants were coming into a largely empty landscape. The late RB economy of southern Britain was dominated by the villa landscape with much of the non essential population having been removed or killed. Once that villa landscape collapsed there would not have been a huge RB population left - probably much smaller than that existing prior to the Roman invasion.
Added to this we know there were a whole series of devestating plagues across the Empire in the 3rd and 4th centuries and these may well have contributed to a population collapse as well.
It is not difficult to become the dominant genetic heritage when a sigbificant portion of the preceding genetic population is already gone by the time you arrive.
Again, hypothesis but with a lot of supporting evidence.
One slightly odd bit of evidence which doesn't fit though is that we apparently speak Anglo-Saxon (Germanic) language but using what is thought to be a Brythonic grammar system. Also the West Heslerton example I mentioned earlier doesn't necessarily fit this empty landscape hypothesis.
I also sense that the general trend in the evidence is in discovering more continuity of use, for longer than previously assumed (in the SE at least). Which smooths it all out a bit.
My feeling is that there are probably "locally" empty landscapes (especially in those mid-range villa landscapes that are abandoned to more subsistence family enclosures when the villa complex itself is becoming irreparable) and the migrants occupy that landscape (which is "known good" farmland); they then become culturally and genetically dominant in that space. Their success, and the interactions with the wider network are what develops our hybrid germanic/brythonic language.
I think that is an excellent hypothesis. It makes more sense than the purist views which dominated for most of the 20th century and which some on here still seem to cling to
One thing people have missed on SUVs - there are loopholes in US law for "work vehicles" around emissions and pedestrian safety.
So US manufacturers have simply marketed massive cars to the masses to get around these regulations, with all the negative effects that brings. It's why child pedestrian deaths have rocketed in the US - drivers can't see over the bonnet. Then you have road wear and tear, emissions, parking...
We must tax these out of existence in the UK. Replace VED with size/weight metrics.
Absolutely!
In the US, a “truck” is exempt from all sorts of laws that apply to cars. Which is why the best selling vehicle is the Ford F150.
If you have a Caterham 7, or a Lotus Elise, the government should be paying you every year. If you have a BMW iX, it should cost you a couple of grand.
The Viking invasions were probably the moment the English began to feel REALLY English. A people
There’s nothing like being attacked to make you the victims band together, and bond into a team
I think that's right.
And, actually, these really were invasions (even if the numbers were not huge, relative to the pre-existing population). Attempts to rewrite the Vikings as peaceful traders and farmers are a form of revisionism too far. A trader and farmer could be a warrior and pirate, according to circumstance.
I think it was in one of Cornwell's Last Kingdom novel afterwords where he talked about that revisionism, albeit he is not a historian. He talked about the definitive proof we have of establishment of fortified towns/burhs and just how expensive and difficult that would have been, and you just don't do that unless you are facing serious and existential military threat.
Again there is masses of archaeological evidence for the Viking military assault which doesn't exist for the earlier Saxon migrations. Villages and farmsteads being burnt down leaves a very clear trace in the archaological record and when lots of these happen in the same area at around the same time you can generaly disregard accidents.
And of course the AS Chronicle was being written at the time of the Viking onslaught so is a far more reliable document for this period than for the earlier migration period.
One thing people have missed on SUVs - there are loopholes in US law for "work vehicles" around emissions and pedestrian safety.
So US manufacturers have simply marketed massive cars to the masses to get around these regulations, with all the negative effects that brings. It's why child pedestrian deaths have rocketed in the US - drivers can't see over the bonnet. Then you have road wear and tear, emissions, parking...
We must tax these out of existence in the UK. Replace VED with size/weight metrics.
Absolutely!
In the US, a “truck” is exempt from all sorts of laws that apply to cars. Which is why the best selling vehicle is the Ford F150.
If you have a Caterham 7, or a Lotus Elise, the government should be paying you every year. If you have a BMW iX, it should cost you a couple of grand.
(Says smug estate car owner, who hates SUVs).
Also; trucks incur 25% tariffs for importing into the US, against 3% for cars.
One thing people have missed on SUVs - there are loopholes in US law for "work vehicles" around emissions and pedestrian safety.
So US manufacturers have simply marketed massive cars to the masses to get around these regulations, with all the negative effects that brings. It's why child pedestrian deaths have rocketed in the US - drivers can't see over the bonnet. Then you have road wear and tear, emissions, parking...
We must tax these out of existence in the UK. Replace VED with size/weight metrics.
Absolutely!
In the US, a “truck” is exempt from all sorts of laws that apply to cars. Which is why the best selling vehicle is the Ford F150.
If you have a Caterham 7, or a Lotus Elise, the government should be paying you every year. If you have a BMW iX, it should cost you a couple of grand.
(Says smug estate car owner, who hates SUVs).
I sometimes go down the rabbit hole of late night dashcam footage on YouTube, have seen how the Chevy Equinox and the Ford Escape (other SUVs are available) tumble when they hit a Camry at speed? Same with the F150.
One of the strongest English cultural identity memes, the idea of having a great Royal Navy, is really very recent, more recent than Shakespeare even.
Mid-18th century, arguably - the Tudor one was too privatised, and the Stuarts screwed up big time despite a good start and Cromwell doing well in between.
I'm supremely uninterested and lack details - but why the furore? He's had an affair at work. Is that it?
I think it says a lot about the shifting sands of our culture. Would anyone have even regarded what he did as “an affair” 20 years ago?
It's bullshit though - the sands haven't really shifted. Jeez, I'd have been sacked loads of times. How many people have found their spouse's via work, often while with a former partner? The puritanism of some astonishes me.
Yup. I'm married to my former manageress, with whom I had a fling at work!
As far as I can see, Schofield has done nothing illegal, so all the rest is mere value judgements based on a media circus generated by organisations that love talking about nothing but themselves.
He is one of millions of people who have met a partner at work and while the extreme junior-senior element was perhaps distasteful to some I don't see why this story is commanding so much attention.
He's left. He's gone. So presumably that's it?
It does seem like, unless there was illegality afoot, Schofield should now be left alone.
Or are the febrile media looking for a Caroline Flack redux?
Because it’s been decided that the star ‘talent’, in his 50s, f…ing the 18-year-old intern, is no longer acceptable.
Both men were over the age of consent weren’t they? What’s the point of having that law otherwise?
Power differentials - it is a sacking offence in every company I know of to have an affair with someone in the reporting line.
What you are supposed to do is report it to HR, so one person gets moved to a different department.
Isn't that rather unfair on Chief Executives? Who are they supposed to have affairs with?
You really think Reddit is a source of top historians?
Anglo Saxons certainly were an accepted group, from the Saxon coast in Germany and Anglia in southern Denmark
That first reddit post seems rather disjointed to me. Perhaps a better question may be:
Did the Angles and Saxons see *themselves* as a distinct ethnic group / groups?
Compared to the Romano British and Celts and later the Normans, absolutely
Not sure we’re any more likely to get the nuanced discussion this debate requires on pb.com any more than on Reddit or in the Telegraph (though it is nice to see the latter featuring a story which isn’t on trans, though who knows: ‘what is an Anglo-Saxon woman?’ may be the next brainwave)
The idea that people in dark ages Europe (especially at the fringes of Rome and beyond) considered themselves as belonging to ethnic groups in the way we define them today really is debatable. That it remained a defined and coherent identity till more or less the present day, is quite a stretch, especially given the pot-pourri of genetic and cultural admixture over the centuries since. ‘English’ is a much more helpful term than ‘Anglo-Saxon’. I am unquestionably the former, but it would be a huge stretch to define me as the latter.
England didn't emerge as anything approaching a nation until Athelstan in the 10th century.
The Anglo Saxons arrived in the 8th century, so for historians Anglo Saxon and the Anglo Saxon Kingdoms of Mercia, Northumbria and Wessex and Kent, Essex, Sussex and East Anglia remain very useful terms for describing that period
I think we’re talking at cross purposes here. My point is really that ‘Anglo-Saxon’ is a useless term applied in a modern context. I agree that it’s reasonably sensible to use it it in the context of 8th century history etc.
But HYUFD told us recently about the Anglo-Saxon countries today, about how the US, Denmark etc. are all the same, or something…
Anglo Saxons originally came from Germany and Denmark, they then moved to England displacing the Celts, who retreated largely to Wales and parts of Cornwall and Romano British (with some Normans later added on top at the elite aristocratic end) and the English then formed the bulk of the British colonisers of North America (where even today most Americans have ancestry from Germany or Britain and most Australians and New Zealanders and Canadians outside Quebec British ancestry too).
Utterly wrong. For a start there was no distinction between 'Celts' and Romano-British. By the time of the Germanic migrations they were the same thing. Secondly all the evidence is that there was complete integration between the Germanic migrants and the Romano-British. This is shown time and time again across the country by archaeoleogy. Moreover the Germanic migrants had been in Britain living alongside the Romano-British since at least the end of the 3rd century. Indeed it is likely that it was they who maintained the veneer of Roman civilisation along the Thames valley for more than half a century after the withdrawal of direct Imperial control.
Nor did the Anglo-Saxons 'arrive' in the 8th century. As I said, the Germanic tribes - Angles, Saxons, Jutes and others had been arriving in Britain since the 3rd century and in significant numbers since the early 5th century.
And Offa referred to himself as Rex Anglorum more than 150 years before Aethelstan. Bede refers to 'The English' in the early 8th century.
Fascinating, Richard. Thank you.
So this 'boat people' problem we are experiencing is not a new phenomenon then?
Not at all. And in much the same way, the 'invasions' were a myth in the Early Medieval Period just as much as they are now.
I was always supportive of the "there was no large scale migration" theory. And I still am.
However, my confidence was somewhat shaken by this paper from the Max Planck Institute last Autumn.
The migrations were not a myth. The idea that they were an 'invasion' or a conquest is a myth - in my view.
We know that there were large scale migrations. What is changing is our view of the nature of those migrations.
Even so, look at a site like West Heslerton in Yorkshire. The cemetery there which dates to the migration period contained over 200 burials in the classical 'Anglian' style. And yet when they were tested using Oxygen and Strontium isotope testing of the teeth, only one was found to have grown up outside the British Isles.
Oh, sure - sorry. I did mistake that completely! Yes; I completely agree with this perspective. The only nuance is in what you mean by "large scale".
Large enough to become the dominant cultural influence - certainly. What surprises me is that it seems that it was large enough to become the dominant genetic heritage, very rapidly.
It depends on what they were assimilating into. One of the theories which seems to be backed up by both archaeology and genetics is that the Germanic migrants were coming into a largely empty landscape. The late RB economy of southern Britain was dominated by the villa landscape with much of the non essential population having been removed or killed. Once that villa landscape collapsed there would not have been a huge RB population left - probably much smaller than that existing prior to the Roman invasion.
Added to this we know there were a whole series of devestating plagues across the Empire in the 3rd and 4th centuries and these may well have contributed to a population collapse as well.
It is not difficult to become the dominant genetic heritage when a sigbificant portion of the preceding genetic population is already gone by the time you arrive.
Again, hypothesis but with a lot of supporting evidence.
One slightly odd bit of evidence which doesn't fit though is that we apparently speak Anglo-Saxon (Germanic) language but using what is thought to be a Brythonic grammar system. Also the West Heslerton example I mentioned earlier doesn't necessarily fit this empty landscape hypothesis.
I also sense that the general trend in the evidence is in discovering more continuity of use, for longer than previously assumed (in the SE at least). Which smooths it all out a bit.
My feeling is that there are probably "locally" empty landscapes (especially in those mid-range villa landscapes that are abandoned to more subsistence family enclosures when the villa complex itself is becoming irreparable) and the migrants occupy that landscape (which is "known good" farmland); they then become culturally and genetically dominant in that space. Their success, and the interactions with the wider network are what develops our hybrid germanic/brythonic language.
(One additional point is the de-industrialization: the large scale metal-processing, and potteries seem to die very, very quickly; that will have caused a rapid dispersal of the population).
Worth ading though that this process of both de-industrialisation and abandonment of industrial agriculture starts well before the end of the Roman period in Britain. It was already underway by the time of the Great Barbarian Conspiracy of 367-8 and rapidly accelerated after that. With a few notable exceptions we find little in the way of mass produced pottery in the last couple of decades of the 4th century outside of the Thames valley.
Just watched Nicki Haley on CNN News, Town Hall meeting. If she gets the nomination she will win the White House, very impressive performance. Her stance is not Trump or Santis, she is visionary and could probably bring people together. Having said that I would still vote Democrat.
The former means she won't get a chance to try the latter.
Re the Anglo-Saxons, if we can’t call them “Anglo-Saxons” then what do we call the Germanic invaders who took over the country in the 4th-6th century, displacing Romano-Brits and Celts?
Coz that definitely happened. We can see from place-name evidence. Everywhere
Crikey, yes. Yet again some guy posting on a discussion site completely outwits the academic establishment by spotting something all the eggheads had missed. There'll be some red faces in our universities today. Thank heaven for the Internet.
I’m actually not disputing the Woke academics here on the term (I’ve always felt “Anglo-Saxon” is slightly clumsy). I’m saying the ARGUMENT is a Woke irrelevance. In the 4th-6th century a bunch of Germanic types with a new culture and language came over to Britain and altered our gene pool and changed all the place names. That indisputably happened (you can call it an invasion or not, that’s not my point)
These people need a name. If it can’t be Anglo-Saxon then what will that name be?
As I say, only “early English” is short and pithy enough to work but that will just get the lefties even angrier
The crux of the issue, when not misrepresented by ignorant commentators, is whether the label refers to a distinct ethnic group. It does not, despite the beliefs of some who would rather it did. The reason why they would rather it did fits into the reason for it being a relevant question. Those who would seek to build their politics on a pillar of racial purity or superiority have a fatal flaw in the foundations of their ideology.
Sadly these people still exist and their reaction is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
I think that a group of people that one can call Anglo-Saxons, or English, had become a distinct ethnic group, by the middle of the 10th century, and I see nothing in the Reddit article that conflicts with that.
That's very different from saying that these people formed the basis of some kind of pure or superior race.
The same way I'd say that Germans existed at this time. They just weren't the kind of people that 19th Century German nationalists thought they were.
And do you have any evidence for this distinct ethnicity? It doesn't seem very likely to me, given the continued cultural and linguistic diversity even within England, and what we know of extant genetic differences today. There were and still are many Englands within the borders of England. The wider you cast your net to catch of England, the more readily you will scoop up that which is not and never has been England. Do you think Cumbrians were closer to Sussex folk or to people from Strathclyde? How much did the people of Whitby have in common with Oksbøl versus Oxford?
I have serious doubts about whether you could ever draw a genetic line around England and only England at any point in all of England's history.
And if given the above is true, what use could there be for persisting with the myth if not to make political mischief today? In whose interest is it to link a nation to a fictional genetic stock, other than those whose ideology is filtration and exclusion?
A Royal House whose kings called themselves Kings of England. England would be conquered in the future, but England never ceased to exist as an entity, after 960. They had a common language, a common literature, a common religion, and a common enemy.
These are what create an ethnic group. Claiming that the Anglo-Saxons did not exist as an ethnic group is like claiming that Poles, Germans, Ukrainians etc. did not.
Much of what you claim here can be disputed, though. Caxton's dilemma when choosing how to translate works he intended to print in "English" illustrates the linguistic point:
And he asked specifically for eggs, and the good woman said that she spoke no French, and the merchant got angry for he could not speak French either, but he wanted eggs and she could not understand him. And then at last another person said that he wanted ‘eyren’. Then the good woman said that she understood him well.
That is, people from the opposite ends of England often literally could not understand one another, to the extent that one of them thought the other was speaking an entirely different language! And this is from the year 1490. 1490!
The heterogeneity of England in pre-modern times is consistently underestimated, and by the time it really settles down into something that one can really start to sensibly call one ethnic group, you're already way beyond the point where England was its own thing. What of Wales, by the time Caxton was writing?
As for the common enemy... whom? When? Even when the Normans invaded, there wasn't unity, even between midlands and the south. If there had have been, the invasion might have been repelled.
The common enemy were the Danes and the Norse. The House of Wessex/England spent 150 years fighting them. As we're seeing in Ukraine, nothing does more to create a shared sense of identity than military service against an enemy attacking one's homeland.
Did anybody outside the court of Wessex really care about that kind of nation building?
Not at the start maybe, but at the end. That's why it's nation building.
Is there any other surname in the history of surnames wherein there are two capitals?
DeSantis is going full on tech start-up.
Edit: McX I suppose
Quite a few Italian Americans did the same, e.g. the jazz musician Joey DeFrancesco, the podcaster Perry DeAngelis or there's a Dem politician called Wayne DeAngelo.
Note that Fiorello La Guardia spelled HIS surname with a space.
Despite that, many folks - including alleged authorities - insist on spelling it "LaGuardia"
For example, the freaking Port of New York and New Jersey, as in "LaGuardia Airport"
More new polls since yesterday with the PP lead reaching 12% in the most recent. However,
1. Still no absolute majority forecast. 2. Only the PP could reach a majority with the support of VOX. 3. PSOE cannot reach absolute majority even if all the other parties apart from VOX back them and tat is not going to happen. 4. A PP simple majority with tacit VOX support is currently the most likely outcome. 5. Despite HYUFD's repeated claims point 4. above does not mean a hard right scenario for Spain, It means a moderate centre right government. 6. It is just about possible that a grand coalition of PP/PSOE could occur depending on how the final numbers pan out, 7. So far the decision of the PSOE to go for early elections does not seem to have been wise.
Of course as ever, we must wait 'la señora gorda canta!'
No it doesn't, a moderate centre right government would be PP led with Citizens support. Not a PP minority government reliant on confidence and supply from the hard right Vox to stay in power,
Based on the above only a PP/PSOE grand coalition could prevent Spain getting a hard right government
More new polls since yesterday with the PP lead reaching 12% in the most recent. However,
1. Still no absolute majority forecast. 2. Only the PP could reach a majority with the support of VOX. 3. PSOE cannot reach absolute majority even if all the other parties apart from VOX back them and tat is not going to happen. 4. A PP simple majority with tacit VOX support is currently the most likely outcome. 5. Despite HYUFD's repeated claims point 4. above does not mean a hard right scenario for Spain, It means a moderate centre right government. 6. It is just about possible that a grand coalition of PP/PSOE could occur depending on how the final numbers pan out, 7. So far the decision of the PSOE to go for early elections does not seem to have been wise.
Of course as ever, we must wait 'la señora gorda canta!'
No it doesn't, a moderate centre right government would be PP led with Citizens support. Not a PP minority government reliant on confidence and supply from the hard right Vox to stay in power,
Based on the above only a PP/PSOE grand coalition could prevent Spain getting a hard right government
You do not understand the mechanics of power in Spain. Vox would have no choice but to support PP or face a more left-wing alternative. As minority players in this scenario their influence would be very limited. You seem to think that their support would force PP to enact their agenda - it simply is not the case. The PP would always have the choice to go elsewhere
More new polls since yesterday with the PP lead reaching 12% in the most recent. However,
1. Still no absolute majority forecast. 2. Only the PP could reach a majority with the support of VOX. 3. PSOE cannot reach absolute majority even if all the other parties apart from VOX back them and tat is not going to happen. 4. A PP simple majority with tacit VOX support is currently the most likely outcome. 5. Despite HYUFD's repeated claims point 4. above does not mean a hard right scenario for Spain, It means a moderate centre right government. 6. It is just about possible that a grand coalition of PP/PSOE could occur depending on how the final numbers pan out, 7. So far the decision of the PSOE to go for early elections does not seem to have been wise.
Of course as ever, we must wait 'la señora gorda canta!'
No it doesn't, a moderate centre right government would be PP led with Citizens support. Not a PP minority government reliant on confidence and supply from the hard right Vox to stay in power,
Based on the above only a PP/PSOE grand coalition could prevent Spain getting a hard right government
More new polls since yesterday with the PP lead reaching 12% in the most recent. However,
1. Still no absolute majority forecast. 2. Only the PP could reach a majority with the support of VOX. 3. PSOE cannot reach absolute majority even if all the other parties apart from VOX back them and tat is not going to happen. 4. A PP simple majority with tacit VOX support is currently the most likely outcome. 5. Despite HYUFD's repeated claims point 4. above does not mean a hard right scenario for Spain, It means a moderate centre right government. 6. It is just about possible that a grand coalition of PP/PSOE could occur depending on how the final numbers pan out, 7. So far the decision of the PSOE to go for early elections does not seem to have been wise.
Of course as ever, we must wait 'la señora gorda canta!'
No it doesn't, a moderate centre right government would be PP led with Citizens support. Not a PP minority government reliant on confidence and supply from the hard right Vox to stay in power,
Based on the above only a PP/PSOE grand coalition could prevent Spain getting a hard right government
You do not understand the mechanics of power in Spain. Vox would have no choice but to support PP or face a more left-wing alternative. As minority players in this scenario their influence would be very limited. You seem to think that their support would force PP to enact their agenda - it simply is not the case. The PP would always have the choice to go elsewhere
Comments
He added: “I’m not trying to create any scaremongering, and I want to emphasise that not all 6,000 multi-storey car parks across the UK have to be closed.
“It’s only the very old ones, built in the 60s and 70s, which are in a very poor state of repair and have weakened over time which will probably need to have some work done to them.
Basically the title should be "Heavy cars too heavy for old multi-story car parks".
I just don't believe hounding Schofield is the way forward. If he has broken the law, that is for law enforcement to determine, if he hasn't leave him alone.
In the 2010s, the average car weighed about 1600kg
The average 2030s car might be over 2000kg.
Which could be a massive issue for the engineering calculations on those 1960s car parks, and a reminder both to the operators and regulators, that there’s a potential issue here.
The old Mini weighted less than 600kg; the new one is twice that (or maybe even a little more).
However, this is a problem that is easily solved. If a car park is deemed unable to deal with the weight of modern cars, you just mandate max capacity of 80% or whatever.
For an IT person, I'm someone who has been supremely unfused by a lot of elements of IT as an end user - here's another Windows laptop, here's Chrome, here's IE - OK, no bother, I can generally do my job 99% of the day with mind to keyboard as the limiting performance factor. Some websites do better on Chrome, some prefer Edge, Bing increasingly gives similar results as Google, which wasn't what happened on a few years ago. Firefox or a.n.other, why pose, just go with what is in front of you.
But Edge my word - nicey, nicey Corporate home pages are increasingly gone, the configurability has reduced and the force feeding of MSN aggregated horse shit is barely tolerable. I mean, you can get the same, marginally better quality, stuff from Chrome but it is more buried.
It's crept up on me, but I need to get away from it now.
I wonder how many are passively getting their worldview Mailified.
Although by the time he'd finished the north of it was pretty well deserted!
Even a relatively high end model like the Tesla Y is under 2 tonnes. And batteries will be a lot lighter by 2030.
The current Governor of the great State of Florida spells his surname - DeSantis.
Two capital letters. Zero space between "De" and "Santis". Do NOT leave off the "De".
But those claims don't delve into the common sentiment, which is where we started. It's entirely possible for a unified state to exist above the indifference or even hostility of the peasantry.
I simply don't know of any evidence of the kind of sentiment being assumed here. The starting point for my question was the idea that the Danes were the common enemy. Given that a sizeable portion of England was of Norse origin, I find this claim dubious. We don't know very well what those people thought so we should avoid making claims on their opinions.
It's especially egregious in this case because we're trying to assess the claims of England being a single people, and the evidence offered is that they were united against a common enemy, which seems to rely on the idea that of course they were because they were a common people. That is begging the question in the proper sense.
Seems like the problem is solved with a heat gun to get rid of the old paint and a new paint brush, although you now probably have a big shortage of parking spaces.
Now if the allusion here is there was illegality and that illegality was covered up that is a more serious story.
Rather he's pointing out that foundation myths are myth rather than history.
There was not much recognisably 'English' as now understood about this land back in 1065.
Fast forward to Tudor times and there's a great deal which is.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/05/will-you-star-in-porn-films-job-centres-ask-actors/
WE just don't have the records of what ordinary people thought about politics.
'Position of trust' is a legal term defined in the Sexual Offences Act 2003. In section 22 it is explained as an adult “caring for, training, supervising or being in sole charge” of a child under the age of 18.
Sexual relations with a child over the age of consent, in that situation, are illegal.
(Although even earlier, pre-urban cultures may have been democratic in a broader sense: see Wengrow/Graeber.)
As to what he did wrong - I think, although he may not see it this way, it looks very like grooming. And he lied to his employers.
He also threw the poor lad under the bus in 2020. He has destroyed the cuddly, trustable Phil role for good.
He shamed himself by trying to 'out' Lord Bramall and others, live on TV. If this is the universe being nemesis to his hubris, so be it.
I suppose the question is whether shared military service tended to create that sense of shared identity in earlier centuries.
Same way as Elon owned twitter getting nearly daily hit pieces about what a horrid platform it has become etc etc etc, because all those media types feel their lovely twitter has been taken away from them by a man who they thought was one of them, with his eco values etc.
Same as phone hacking was solely focused on NOTW, not that the whole industry had engaged in it for donkeys years, and the Mirror were the Man City, to NOTW Wrexham, in terms of money spent. Only the Independent looked at the fact it was also even wider than the papers, corporations had been up to it as well.
Russian strategy to exhaust Ukraine’s air defense missiles with cheap drones unsuccessful – British Intel
Ukraine neutralized most of the over 300 Shahed drones launched in May w/cheaper weapons & electronic jamming, not expensive advanced missiles
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1665722499085000707
DeSantis is going full on tech start-up.
Edit: McX I suppose
I don’t know why they do it. I guess it was the cheapest solution, using the least amount of tarmac/space.
Asking for trouble.
@CBSNews entering the Justice Department, per @RobLegare who is on site… comes as sources tell me the special counsel is moving toward a charging decision in the classified documents case
https://twitter.com/costareports/status/1665722395095605248
[ducks]
That said, there is something a bit off with someone in their fifties making online friendships with teenagers who they later to go on to have an affair with. The half your age plus seven rule applies. But I do think it wouldn't be as plastered everywhere if the teen in question had been female.
It's been an open secret for so long as well that most journos have been dying to get it out of their system.
(unlike the mystery Finland Rumour on here that I've never understood).
You were a German, where every German was named "Freund", and every Frenchman was named "Fiend".
Despite this invented history, I'd still argue that Germans, as a distinct ethnic group, existed long before the 19th century.
Mind you I also think his PR made a real blunder with the photo op of him with his frail old Mother yesterday. The cynicism of the responses was not misplaced.
D'Arcy
DaCunha
D'Annunzio
D'Artagnan (One for all and all for one! Musket Hounds are always ready...)
I was going to say DuQuesne, but apparently it's Duquesne
What you are supposed to do is report it to HR, so one person gets moved to a different department.
Mind, the same applies to someone from Vienna.
Don't deadname me.
Now I’m going to Hideaway.
spends all his time on pbactually has to work for a living, I have never watched a single minute of Phil and Holly on the Sofa, and basically couldn't give a stuff that he has been sacked, other than the sheer fun of seeing yet another hypocrite exposed...https://www.flightradar24.com/BAW21H/3096f003
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65814126
So US manufacturers have simply marketed massive cars to the masses to get around these regulations, with all the negative effects that brings. It's why child pedestrian deaths have rocketed in the US - drivers can't see over the bonnet. Then you have road wear and tear, emissions, parking...
Indeed, the modern SUV can have less forward visibility than a M1A2 Abrams tank. And some are nearly as big. https://twitter.com/cocteautriplets/status/1417767952158543874?t=diercFbNq5yIBH8kq61cCw&s=19
We must tax these out of existence in the UK. Replace VED with size/weight metrics.
In the US, a “truck” is exempt from all sorts of laws that apply to cars. Which is why the best selling vehicle is the Ford F150.
If you have a Caterham 7, or a Lotus Elise, the government should be paying you every year. If you have a BMW iX, it should cost you a couple of grand.
(Says smug estate car owner, who hates SUVs).
And of course the AS Chronicle was being written at the time of the Viking onslaught so is a far more reliable document for this period than for the earlier migration period.
Signed: CycleFree.
Despite that, many folks - including alleged authorities - insist on spelling it "LaGuardia"
For example, the freaking Port of New York and New Jersey, as in "LaGuardia Airport"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaGuardia_Airport