I was watching at a friend's some NFL last night on what must US broadcast, and saw a couple of political adverts. One was a Harris advert and to be frank it appeared quite dire - though the tone was definitely about pushing out more female turnout than anything else If I'd hazard a guess. The other was an Moreno advert which was definitely more negative but punchier I thought than the Harris advert (And obviously geolocated the Bears/Texans broadcast to Ohio).
Welcome to the UK. Write something offensive on Facebook in your own home and you get 15 months in jail. Make hundreds of indecent images of children and you don't go to jail. 2:32 pm · 16 Sep 2024"
Interesting who this kind of reputational damage sticks to and who it doesnt. Both Tony and Cherie were well renowned 'grabbers'. Neither coming from proper money, solicited and gladly chomped through whatever they could, but it didnt hurt Tony in office. Starmer doesnt seem to have any kind of honeymoon protection at all.
During Blair's time the economic situation was generally favourable and they were able spray money around so people didn't care very much about the Blairs "grabbing"
Lord and Lady Starmer swanning around in the finest clothes someone else's money can buy while pensioners are going to freeze this winter is a rather harder "sell"
Pensioners have been mollycoddled for far too long.
We’re all in this together.
We had a PM in Boris Johnson that dressed like a scruff, it’s good for the UK for a PM to wear the best.
Can anyone looking really tell the difference between someone whose clothes cost £150 and someone whose clothes cost £1500? If they can, that says rather more about the observer than the observed.
I can, but then I have a keen eye for this.
See the second half of my comment above
When I was young, putting a lot of effort (and certainly a lot of time and/or expense) into your appearance was a bit frowned upon. You were expected, if possible, to achieve a certain level of cleanliness and/or personal hygiene, but anything more than that was a bit suspect - a bit 'look at me'. Actually, I say 'when I was young', I suspect most of men of my generation still think that way.
Maybe that is true, but it's hardly something to be proud of, is it?
I kind of think it is. We used to consider vanity a vice rather than a virtue. We used to consider showing off something to be dissuaded. We used to mock peacockery. A certain parsimoniousness whn it comes to one's appearance seems to me to be something to be applauded. By which I don't necessarily mean turning up in a t-shirt riven with holes and ketchup stains. But I rather disdain the mindset which thinks it acceptable to spend £1000 a year or more on one's own appearance. It seems frivolous. Do you remember the book of sports lists? I remember a list in it of sportsmen who cared rather too much for their own appearance - it included, I think, Peter Shilton, who would drive to a city 30 miles away for his particular needs for a haircut, and, possibly, Kevin Keegan, who spent rather more than the then-quite-daring £5 a month on a haircut. And someone who spent a lot on clothes, no doubt. But the fact that ten such people could be picked out showed how comparatively rare that sort of vanity was in those days. If you made a list now of sportsmen who cared too much for their own appearance you'd be here until doomsday.
Do you apply these hairshirt morals to women too, or just men?
I can tell that you don't agree, Anabobz, but I'm guessing you're about my age? Do you not think values on this have shifted somewhat in our lifetimes? It's not a massive issue. I mean, of all the vices that there are, vanity/frivolousness/attention seeking is rather low on the list. But still - it strikes me as an odd change, and odd that it's so uncommented on. It's a reasonable question whether it applies in my mind to both men and women - not least because the instinctive reaction to someone who, for example, spends £30 or more on a haircut is that doing so is a bit unmanly. But on reflection, yes, I'd say I do apply these 'hairshirt morals' to women as well, or at least something similar. There is no need to spend thousands on clothes, and drawing attention to doing so, just looks a bit like conspicuous consumption.
There's a quite low upper ceiling to how good anyone - male or female - can look, and expense and effort which goes beyond that is not only wasted but also looks a bit, well, crass.
As I say above - these aren't strongly held feelings. But I feel kind of sure this is how everyone used to feel, and I don't understand how and why the dial has shifted.
See also - tattoos.
How much did your current shirt cost? I'm guessing around a month's income for around 650m people.
Everything is relative. So what if people pay a lot for this or that? If they can afford it it doesn't make it extravagant or vain.
Yebbut, 40 years ago it would have done. I'm not so much defending my own position as expressing bafflement that values of this have shifted so much in my lifetime without real comment.
And in answer to your rhetorical question, about £25.
I'm not necessarily against spending money. I've previously lamented my decision not to by a painting, which is clearly a frivolous purchase. Though if I spend money on clothing, I have to get a LOT of wear out of the item to justify it to myself. (And I don't think I've ever spent over £70 on a non-footwear clothing item; and the most I have ever spent on footwear was on a standard pair of Dr. Marten boots, which exemplify the sort of sartorial utilitarianism I favour.)
I just instinctively disapprove slightly of excess effort with one's own appearance, and of men who dress to draw attention to themselves. This is just the values of the world I grew up in. It was so ingrained it was hardly worthy of comment. And now it isn't. Do you not find this interesting?
The world you grew up in. As opposed to the world hundreds of years ago where dandyism and foppishness were celebrated.
Indeed - interesting. If only we had some 250 year olds on the board, they could tell us when this changed. My guess: WW1. It may actually be that the late 70s/80s/early 90s were the nadir for male sartorial exuberance. I remember my friend's father - who was of a slightly older generation than my own - recollecting his youth of the early 60s, when the key to attracting girls was dressing to the nines and young men would happily wear expensively tailored suits for a night out. Whereas when I was young: yes, secretly, you wanted to look good to advance your chances of meeting girls. But you very much didn't want to look like you were trying to look good.
Every era has had its code whether it was mods and rockers or burberry raincoats or stone island or adidas spezials. And most people have wanted to appear as more affluent than they are (eg the burberry and gucci keyring crazes). Ofc it is generally the gentry that cut about in moth-eaten sweaters and ancient clothes held together by baler twine.
Interesting who this kind of reputational damage sticks to and who it doesnt. Both Tony and Cherie were well renowned 'grabbers'. Neither coming from proper money, solicited and gladly chomped through whatever they could, but it didnt hurt Tony in office. Starmer doesnt seem to have any kind of honeymoon protection at all.
During Blair's time the economic situation was generally favourable and they were able spray money around so people didn't care very much about the Blairs "grabbing"
Lord and Lady Starmer swanning around in the finest clothes someone else's money can buy while pensioners are going to freeze this winter is a rather harder "sell"
Pensioners have been mollycoddled for far too long.
We’re all in this together.
We had a PM in Boris Johnson that dressed like a scruff, it’s good for the UK for a PM to wear the best.
Can anyone looking really tell the difference between someone whose clothes cost £150 and someone whose clothes cost £1500? If they can, that says rather more about the observer than the observed.
I can, but then I have a keen eye for this.
See the second half of my comment above
When I was young, putting a lot of effort (and certainly a lot of time and/or expense) into your appearance was a bit frowned upon. You were expected, if possible, to achieve a certain level of cleanliness and/or personal hygiene, but anything more than that was a bit suspect - a bit 'look at me'. Actually, I say 'when I was young', I suspect most of men of my generation still think that way.
Maybe that is true, but it's hardly something to be proud of, is it?
I kind of think it is. We used to consider vanity a vice rather than a virtue. We used to consider showing off something to be dissuaded. We used to mock peacockery. A certain parsimoniousness whn it comes to one's appearance seems to me to be something to be applauded. By which I don't necessarily mean turning up in a t-shirt riven with holes and ketchup stains. But I rather disdain the mindset which thinks it acceptable to spend £1000 a year or more on one's own appearance. It seems frivolous. Do you remember the book of sports lists? I remember a list in it of sportsmen who cared rather too much for their own appearance - it included, I think, Peter Shilton, who would drive to a city 30 miles away for his particular needs for a haircut, and, possibly, Kevin Keegan, who spent rather more than the then-quite-daring £5 a month on a haircut. And someone who spent a lot on clothes, no doubt. But the fact that ten such people could be picked out showed how comparatively rare that sort of vanity was in those days. If you made a list now of sportsmen who cared too much for their own appearance you'd be here until doomsday.
Do you apply these hairshirt morals to women too, or just men?
I can tell that you don't agree, Anabobz, but I'm guessing you're about my age? Do you not think values on this have shifted somewhat in our lifetimes? It's not a massive issue. I mean, of all the vices that there are, vanity/frivolousness/attention seeking is rather low on the list. But still - it strikes me as an odd change, and odd that it's so uncommented on. It's a reasonable question whether it applies in my mind to both men and women - not least because the instinctive reaction to someone who, for example, spends £30 or more on a haircut is that doing so is a bit unmanly. But on reflection, yes, I'd say I do apply these 'hairshirt morals' to women as well, or at least something similar. There is no need to spend thousands on clothes, and drawing attention to doing so, just looks a bit like conspicuous consumption.
There's a quite low upper ceiling to how good anyone - male or female - can look, and expense and effort which goes beyond that is not only wasted but also looks a bit, well, crass.
As I say above - these aren't strongly held feelings. But I feel kind of sure this is how everyone used to feel, and I don't understand how and why the dial has shifted.
See also - tattoos.
How much did your current shirt cost? I'm guessing around a month's income for around 650m people.
Everything is relative. So what if people pay a lot for this or that? If they can afford it it doesn't make it extravagant or vain.
Yebbut, 40 years ago it would have done. I'm not so much defending my own position as expressing bafflement that values of this have shifted so much in my lifetime without real comment.
And in answer to your rhetorical question, about £25.
I'm not necessarily against spending money. I've previously lamented my decision not to by a painting, which is clearly a frivolous purchase. Though if I spend money on clothing, I have to get a LOT of wear out of the item to justify it to myself. (And I don't think I've ever spent over £70 on a non-footwear clothing item; and the most I have ever spent on footwear was on a standard pair of Dr. Marten boots, which exemplify the sort of sartorial utilitarianism I favour.)
I just instinctively disapprove slightly of excess effort with one's own appearance, and of men who dress to draw attention to themselves. This is just the values of the world I grew up in. It was so ingrained it was hardly worthy of comment. And now it isn't. Do you not find this interesting?
The world you grew up in. As opposed to the world hundreds of years ago where dandyism and foppishness were celebrated.
Indeed - interesting. If only we had some 250 year olds on the board, they could tell us when this changed. My guess: WW1. It may actually be that the late 70s/80s/early 90s were the nadir for male sartorial exuberance. I remember my friend's father - who was of a slightly older generation than my own - recollecting his youth of the early 60s, when the key to attracting girls was dressing to the nines and young men would happily wear expensively tailored suits for a night out. Whereas when I was young: yes, secretly, you wanted to look good to advance your chances of meeting girls. But you very much didn't want to look like you were trying to look good.
Every era has had its code whether it was mods and rockers or burberry raincoats or stone island or adidas spezials. And most people have wanted to appear as more affluent than they are (eg the burberry and gucci keyring crazes). Ofc it is generally the gentry that cut about in moth-eaten sweaters and ancient clothes held together by baler twine.
But no, that's the point. The male youth of the 70s/80s/90s did not dress to look more affluent than they were. Baggy shirts and doc martens. Or heavy metal chic. Or punk. Or Mark E Smith out of the Fall. Or shell suits. The new romantics of the early 80s were a sort of exception to this, but even they didn't look affluent - they looked like they'd indiscriminately raided a charity shop to try to stage a pantomime.
OTOH ... I remember visiting an old university friend c 2000 and meeting her daughter who was a student. Looked like one of those Australian parakeets - mixed primary colours and simple combinations thereof eg green. Dressed from charity shops, sure, but she took care over the overall effect and the appearance. Indiscriminate she wasn't.
Interesting who this kind of reputational damage sticks to and who it doesnt. Both Tony and Cherie were well renowned 'grabbers'. Neither coming from proper money, solicited and gladly chomped through whatever they could, but it didnt hurt Tony in office. Starmer doesnt seem to have any kind of honeymoon protection at all.
During Blair's time the economic situation was generally favourable and they were able spray money around so people didn't care very much about the Blairs "grabbing"
Lord and Lady Starmer swanning around in the finest clothes someone else's money can buy while pensioners are going to freeze this winter is a rather harder "sell"
Pensioners have been mollycoddled for far too long.
We’re all in this together.
We had a PM in Boris Johnson that dressed like a scruff, it’s good for the UK for a PM to wear the best.
Can anyone looking really tell the difference between someone whose clothes cost £150 and someone whose clothes cost £1500? If they can, that says rather more about the observer than the observed.
I can, but then I have a keen eye for this.
See the second half of my comment above
When I was young, putting a lot of effort (and certainly a lot of time and/or expense) into your appearance was a bit frowned upon. You were expected, if possible, to achieve a certain level of cleanliness and/or personal hygiene, but anything more than that was a bit suspect - a bit 'look at me'. Actually, I say 'when I was young', I suspect most of men of my generation still think that way.
Maybe that is true, but it's hardly something to be proud of, is it?
I kind of think it is. We used to consider vanity a vice rather than a virtue. We used to consider showing off something to be dissuaded. We used to mock peacockery. A certain parsimoniousness whn it comes to one's appearance seems to me to be something to be applauded. By which I don't necessarily mean turning up in a t-shirt riven with holes and ketchup stains. But I rather disdain the mindset which thinks it acceptable to spend £1000 a year or more on one's own appearance. It seems frivolous. Do you remember the book of sports lists? I remember a list in it of sportsmen who cared rather too much for their own appearance - it included, I think, Peter Shilton, who would drive to a city 30 miles away for his particular needs for a haircut, and, possibly, Kevin Keegan, who spent rather more than the then-quite-daring £5 a month on a haircut. And someone who spent a lot on clothes, no doubt. But the fact that ten such people could be picked out showed how comparatively rare that sort of vanity was in those days. If you made a list now of sportsmen who cared too much for their own appearance you'd be here until doomsday.
Do you apply these hairshirt morals to women too, or just men?
I can tell that you don't agree, Anabobz, but I'm guessing you're about my age? Do you not think values on this have shifted somewhat in our lifetimes? It's not a massive issue. I mean, of all the vices that there are, vanity/frivolousness/attention seeking is rather low on the list. But still - it strikes me as an odd change, and odd that it's so uncommented on. It's a reasonable question whether it applies in my mind to both men and women - not least because the instinctive reaction to someone who, for example, spends £30 or more on a haircut is that doing so is a bit unmanly. But on reflection, yes, I'd say I do apply these 'hairshirt morals' to women as well, or at least something similar. There is no need to spend thousands on clothes, and drawing attention to doing so, just looks a bit like conspicuous consumption.
There's a quite low upper ceiling to how good anyone - male or female - can look, and expense and effort which goes beyond that is not only wasted but also looks a bit, well, crass.
As I say above - these aren't strongly held feelings. But I feel kind of sure this is how everyone used to feel, and I don't understand how and why the dial has shifted.
See also - tattoos.
How much did your current shirt cost? I'm guessing around a month's income for around 650m people.
Everything is relative. So what if people pay a lot for this or that? If they can afford it it doesn't make it extravagant or vain.
Yebbut, 40 years ago it would have done. I'm not so much defending my own position as expressing bafflement that values of this have shifted so much in my lifetime without real comment.
And in answer to your rhetorical question, about £25.
I'm not necessarily against spending money. I've previously lamented my decision not to by a painting, which is clearly a frivolous purchase. Though if I spend money on clothing, I have to get a LOT of wear out of the item to justify it to myself. (And I don't think I've ever spent over £70 on a non-footwear clothing item; and the most I have ever spent on footwear was on a standard pair of Dr. Marten boots, which exemplify the sort of sartorial utilitarianism I favour.)
I just instinctively disapprove slightly of excess effort with one's own appearance, and of men who dress to draw attention to themselves. This is just the values of the world I grew up in. It was so ingrained it was hardly worthy of comment. And now it isn't. Do you not find this interesting?
The world you grew up in. As opposed to the world hundreds of years ago where dandyism and foppishness were celebrated.
Indeed - interesting. If only we had some 250 year olds on the board, they could tell us when this changed. My guess: WW1. It may actually be that the late 70s/80s/early 90s were the nadir for male sartorial exuberance. I remember my friend's father - who was of a slightly older generation than my own - recollecting his youth of the early 60s, when the key to attracting girls was dressing to the nines and young men would happily wear expensively tailored suits for a night out. Whereas when I was young: yes, secretly, you wanted to look good to advance your chances of meeting girls. But you very much didn't want to look like you were trying to look good.
Every era has had its code whether it was mods and rockers or burberry raincoats or stone island or adidas spezials. And most people have wanted to appear as more affluent than they are (eg the burberry and gucci keyring crazes). Ofc it is generally the gentry that cut about in moth-eaten sweaters and ancient clothes held together by baler twine.
Interesting who this kind of reputational damage sticks to and who it doesnt. Both Tony and Cherie were well renowned 'grabbers'. Neither coming from proper money, solicited and gladly chomped through whatever they could, but it didnt hurt Tony in office. Starmer doesnt seem to have any kind of honeymoon protection at all.
During Blair's time the economic situation was generally favourable and they were able spray money around so people didn't care very much about the Blairs "grabbing"
Lord and Lady Starmer swanning around in the finest clothes someone else's money can buy while pensioners are going to freeze this winter is a rather harder "sell"
Pensioners have been mollycoddled for far too long.
We’re all in this together.
We had a PM in Boris Johnson that dressed like a scruff, it’s good for the UK for a PM to wear the best.
Can anyone looking really tell the difference between someone whose clothes cost £150 and someone whose clothes cost £1500? If they can, that says rather more about the observer than the observed.
I can, but then I have a keen eye for this.
See the second half of my comment above
When I was young, putting a lot of effort (and certainly a lot of time and/or expense) into your appearance was a bit frowned upon. You were expected, if possible, to achieve a certain level of cleanliness and/or personal hygiene, but anything more than that was a bit suspect - a bit 'look at me'. Actually, I say 'when I was young', I suspect most of men of my generation still think that way.
Maybe that is true, but it's hardly something to be proud of, is it?
I kind of think it is. We used to consider vanity a vice rather than a virtue. We used to consider showing off something to be dissuaded. We used to mock peacockery. A certain parsimoniousness whn it comes to one's appearance seems to me to be something to be applauded. By which I don't necessarily mean turning up in a t-shirt riven with holes and ketchup stains. But I rather disdain the mindset which thinks it acceptable to spend £1000 a year or more on one's own appearance. It seems frivolous. Do you remember the book of sports lists? I remember a list in it of sportsmen who cared rather too much for their own appearance - it included, I think, Peter Shilton, who would drive to a city 30 miles away for his particular needs for a haircut, and, possibly, Kevin Keegan, who spent rather more than the then-quite-daring £5 a month on a haircut. And someone who spent a lot on clothes, no doubt. But the fact that ten such people could be picked out showed how comparatively rare that sort of vanity was in those days. If you made a list now of sportsmen who cared too much for their own appearance you'd be here until doomsday.
Do you apply these hairshirt morals to women too, or just men?
I can tell that you don't agree, Anabobz, but I'm guessing you're about my age? Do you not think values on this have shifted somewhat in our lifetimes? It's not a massive issue. I mean, of all the vices that there are, vanity/frivolousness/attention seeking is rather low on the list. But still - it strikes me as an odd change, and odd that it's so uncommented on. It's a reasonable question whether it applies in my mind to both men and women - not least because the instinctive reaction to someone who, for example, spends £30 or more on a haircut is that doing so is a bit unmanly. But on reflection, yes, I'd say I do apply these 'hairshirt morals' to women as well, or at least something similar. There is no need to spend thousands on clothes, and drawing attention to doing so, just looks a bit like conspicuous consumption.
There's a quite low upper ceiling to how good anyone - male or female - can look, and expense and effort which goes beyond that is not only wasted but also looks a bit, well, crass.
As I say above - these aren't strongly held feelings. But I feel kind of sure this is how everyone used to feel, and I don't understand how and why the dial has shifted.
See also - tattoos.
How much did your current shirt cost? I'm guessing around a month's income for around 650m people.
Everything is relative. So what if people pay a lot for this or that? If they can afford it it doesn't make it extravagant or vain.
Yebbut, 40 years ago it would have done. I'm not so much defending my own position as expressing bafflement that values of this have shifted so much in my lifetime without real comment.
And in answer to your rhetorical question, about £25.
I'm not necessarily against spending money. I've previously lamented my decision not to by a painting, which is clearly a frivolous purchase. Though if I spend money on clothing, I have to get a LOT of wear out of the item to justify it to myself. (And I don't think I've ever spent over £70 on a non-footwear clothing item; and the most I have ever spent on footwear was on a standard pair of Dr. Marten boots, which exemplify the sort of sartorial utilitarianism I favour.)
I just instinctively disapprove slightly of excess effort with one's own appearance, and of men who dress to draw attention to themselves. This is just the values of the world I grew up in. It was so ingrained it was hardly worthy of comment. And now it isn't. Do you not find this interesting?
The world you grew up in. As opposed to the world hundreds of years ago where dandyism and foppishness were celebrated.
Indeed - interesting. If only we had some 250 year olds on the board, they could tell us when this changed. My guess: WW1. It may actually be that the late 70s/80s/early 90s were the nadir for male sartorial exuberance. I remember my friend's father - who was of a slightly older generation than my own - recollecting his youth of the early 60s, when the key to attracting girls was dressing to the nines and young men would happily wear expensively tailored suits for a night out. Whereas when I was young: yes, secretly, you wanted to look good to advance your chances of meeting girls. But you very much didn't want to look like you were trying to look good.
Every era has had its code whether it was mods and rockers or burberry raincoats or stone island or adidas spezials. And most people have wanted to appear as more affluent than they are (eg the burberry and gucci keyring crazes). Ofc it is generally the gentry that cut about in moth-eaten sweaters and ancient clothes held together by baler twine.
But no, that's the point. The male youth of the 70s/80s/90s did not dress to look more affluent than they were. Baggy shirts and doc martens. Or heavy metal chic. Or punk. Or Mark E Smith out of the Fall. Or shell suits. The new romantics of the early 80s were a sort of exception to this, but even they didn't look affluent - they looked like they'd indiscriminately raided a charity shop to try to stage a pantomime.
Your kidding, right? That was the heart of the burberry raincoat/gucci keyring era. And it was a global phenomenon.
You see, I got more clothes than Muhammad Ali and I dress so viciously I got bodyguards, I got two big cars, that definitely ain't the wack I got a Lincoln Continental and a sunroof Cadillac So after school, I take a dip in the pool, which is really on the wall I got a color TV so I can see the Knicks play basketball Hear me talking 'bout checkbooks, credit cards, more money a than a sucker could ever spend
This is all bollocks. PB has determined that anyone who supports Trump is a crank and a lunatic. It can't be that close so someone has blundered.
Either that or PB is talking through its heart not its head.
We saw similar with Brexit. At the Uni all my colleagues expressed surprise at the result - no-one they knew voted for Brexit. They failed to see the self-selected bubble that they lived in.
Trump is the same. Almost all on PB see him as an extremely dangerous threat to democracy and potentially the free world. No-one can understand the mentality of someone in the US would is a supporter.
More or less true but two qualifications. With Brexit, lots of London professional types would say at first that everyone they knew was for Remain, but when examining carefully they knew perfectly well that the secretaries, cleaners, tea ladies, footmen, window cleaners and taxi drivers included a lot of Leavers. But actually (and this was truly significant to the result and why it happened) they didn't think they really counted.
With Trump, he is dangerous and deranged. It is not at all difficult to see why people vote for him, and also that the same people are not all that good at giving a rational account of why.
My rule of thumb is that, given the past polling has tended to underestimate Trump's vote rather than overestimate Clinton / Biden's, any state where Harris is polling
Betting on pollsters to not to change their models is a losing strategy: I would point you to Nate Silver, who currently rates Trump as slight favourite, for the best evidence of this.
That is a very fair point but, in 2020 we have adjustments that were supposed to rectify for 2016's errors and they didn't. The question is not so much will the models be changed - they will - but whether the changes are the right ones.
Welcome to the UK. Write something offensive on Facebook in your own home and you get 15 months in jail. Make hundreds of indecent images of children and you don't go to jail. 2:32 pm · 16 Sep 2024"
Interesting who this kind of reputational damage sticks to and who it doesnt. Both Tony and Cherie were well renowned 'grabbers'. Neither coming from proper money, solicited and gladly chomped through whatever they could, but it didnt hurt Tony in office. Starmer doesnt seem to have any kind of honeymoon protection at all.
During Blair's time the economic situation was generally favourable and they were able spray money around so people didn't care very much about the Blairs "grabbing"
Lord and Lady Starmer swanning around in the finest clothes someone else's money can buy while pensioners are going to freeze this winter is a rather harder "sell"
Pensioners have been mollycoddled for far too long.
We’re all in this together.
We had a PM in Boris Johnson that dressed like a scruff, it’s good for the UK for a PM to wear the best.
Can anyone looking really tell the difference between someone whose clothes cost £150 and someone whose clothes cost £1500? If they can, that says rather more about the observer than the observed.
I can, but then I have a keen eye for this.
See the second half of my comment above
When I was young, putting a lot of effort (and certainly a lot of time and/or expense) into your appearance was a bit frowned upon. You were expected, if possible, to achieve a certain level of cleanliness and/or personal hygiene, but anything more than that was a bit suspect - a bit 'look at me'. Actually, I say 'when I was young', I suspect most of men of my generation still think that way.
Maybe that is true, but it's hardly something to be proud of, is it?
I kind of think it is. We used to consider vanity a vice rather than a virtue. We used to consider showing off something to be dissuaded. We used to mock peacockery. A certain parsimoniousness whn it comes to one's appearance seems to me to be something to be applauded. By which I don't necessarily mean turning up in a t-shirt riven with holes and ketchup stains. But I rather disdain the mindset which thinks it acceptable to spend £1000 a year or more on one's own appearance. It seems frivolous. Do you remember the book of sports lists? I remember a list in it of sportsmen who cared rather too much for their own appearance - it included, I think, Peter Shilton, who would drive to a city 30 miles away for his particular needs for a haircut, and, possibly, Kevin Keegan, who spent rather more than the then-quite-daring £5 a month on a haircut. And someone who spent a lot on clothes, no doubt. But the fact that ten such people could be picked out showed how comparatively rare that sort of vanity was in those days. If you made a list now of sportsmen who cared too much for their own appearance you'd be here until doomsday.
Do you apply these hairshirt morals to women too, or just men?
I can tell that you don't agree, Anabobz, but I'm guessing you're about my age? Do you not think values on this have shifted somewhat in our lifetimes? It's not a massive issue. I mean, of all the vices that there are, vanity/frivolousness/attention seeking is rather low on the list. But still - it strikes me as an odd change, and odd that it's so uncommented on. It's a reasonable question whether it applies in my mind to both men and women - not least because the instinctive reaction to someone who, for example, spends £30 or more on a haircut is that doing so is a bit unmanly. But on reflection, yes, I'd say I do apply these 'hairshirt morals' to women as well, or at least something similar. There is no need to spend thousands on clothes, and drawing attention to doing so, just looks a bit like conspicuous consumption.
There's a quite low upper ceiling to how good anyone - male or female - can look, and expense and effort which goes beyond that is not only wasted but also looks a bit, well, crass.
As I say above - these aren't strongly held feelings. But I feel kind of sure this is how everyone used to feel, and I don't understand how and why the dial has shifted.
See also - tattoos.
How much did your current shirt cost? I'm guessing around a month's income for around 650m people.
Everything is relative. So what if people pay a lot for this or that? If they can afford it it doesn't make it extravagant or vain.
Yebbut, 40 years ago it would have done. I'm not so much defending my own position as expressing bafflement that values of this have shifted so much in my lifetime without real comment.
And in answer to your rhetorical question, about £25.
I'm not necessarily against spending money. I've previously lamented my decision not to by a painting, which is clearly a frivolous purchase. Though if I spend money on clothing, I have to get a LOT of wear out of the item to justify it to myself. (And I don't think I've ever spent over £70 on a non-footwear clothing item; and the most I have ever spent on footwear was on a standard pair of Dr. Marten boots, which exemplify the sort of sartorial utilitarianism I favour.)
I just instinctively disapprove slightly of excess effort with one's own appearance, and of men who dress to draw attention to themselves. This is just the values of the world I grew up in. It was so ingrained it was hardly worthy of comment. And now it isn't. Do you not find this interesting?
The world you grew up in. As opposed to the world hundreds of years ago where dandyism and foppishness were celebrated.
Indeed - interesting. If only we had some 250 year olds on the board, they could tell us when this changed. My guess: WW1. It may actually be that the late 70s/80s/early 90s were the nadir for male sartorial exuberance. I remember my friend's father - who was of a slightly older generation than my own - recollecting his youth of the early 60s, when the key to attracting girls was dressing to the nines and young men would happily wear expensively tailored suits for a night out. Whereas when I was young: yes, secretly, you wanted to look good to advance your chances of meeting girls. But you very much didn't want to look like you were trying to look good.
Every era has had its code whether it was mods and rockers or burberry raincoats or stone island or adidas spezials. And most people have wanted to appear as more affluent than they are (eg the burberry and gucci keyring crazes). Ofc it is generally the gentry that cut about in moth-eaten sweaters and ancient clothes held together by baler twine.
Interesting who this kind of reputational damage sticks to and who it doesnt. Both Tony and Cherie were well renowned 'grabbers'. Neither coming from proper money, solicited and gladly chomped through whatever they could, but it didnt hurt Tony in office. Starmer doesnt seem to have any kind of honeymoon protection at all.
During Blair's time the economic situation was generally favourable and they were able spray money around so people didn't care very much about the Blairs "grabbing"
Lord and Lady Starmer swanning around in the finest clothes someone else's money can buy while pensioners are going to freeze this winter is a rather harder "sell"
Pensioners have been mollycoddled for far too long.
We’re all in this together.
We had a PM in Boris Johnson that dressed like a scruff, it’s good for the UK for a PM to wear the best.
Can anyone looking really tell the difference between someone whose clothes cost £150 and someone whose clothes cost £1500? If they can, that says rather more about the observer than the observed.
I can, but then I have a keen eye for this.
See the second half of my comment above
When I was young, putting a lot of effort (and certainly a lot of time and/or expense) into your appearance was a bit frowned upon. You were expected, if possible, to achieve a certain level of cleanliness and/or personal hygiene, but anything more than that was a bit suspect - a bit 'look at me'. Actually, I say 'when I was young', I suspect most of men of my generation still think that way.
Maybe that is true, but it's hardly something to be proud of, is it?
I kind of think it is. We used to consider vanity a vice rather than a virtue. We used to consider showing off something to be dissuaded. We used to mock peacockery. A certain parsimoniousness whn it comes to one's appearance seems to me to be something to be applauded. By which I don't necessarily mean turning up in a t-shirt riven with holes and ketchup stains. But I rather disdain the mindset which thinks it acceptable to spend £1000 a year or more on one's own appearance. It seems frivolous. Do you remember the book of sports lists? I remember a list in it of sportsmen who cared rather too much for their own appearance - it included, I think, Peter Shilton, who would drive to a city 30 miles away for his particular needs for a haircut, and, possibly, Kevin Keegan, who spent rather more than the then-quite-daring £5 a month on a haircut. And someone who spent a lot on clothes, no doubt. But the fact that ten such people could be picked out showed how comparatively rare that sort of vanity was in those days. If you made a list now of sportsmen who cared too much for their own appearance you'd be here until doomsday.
Do you apply these hairshirt morals to women too, or just men?
I can tell that you don't agree, Anabobz, but I'm guessing you're about my age? Do you not think values on this have shifted somewhat in our lifetimes? It's not a massive issue. I mean, of all the vices that there are, vanity/frivolousness/attention seeking is rather low on the list. But still - it strikes me as an odd change, and odd that it's so uncommented on. It's a reasonable question whether it applies in my mind to both men and women - not least because the instinctive reaction to someone who, for example, spends £30 or more on a haircut is that doing so is a bit unmanly. But on reflection, yes, I'd say I do apply these 'hairshirt morals' to women as well, or at least something similar. There is no need to spend thousands on clothes, and drawing attention to doing so, just looks a bit like conspicuous consumption.
There's a quite low upper ceiling to how good anyone - male or female - can look, and expense and effort which goes beyond that is not only wasted but also looks a bit, well, crass.
As I say above - these aren't strongly held feelings. But I feel kind of sure this is how everyone used to feel, and I don't understand how and why the dial has shifted.
See also - tattoos.
How much did your current shirt cost? I'm guessing around a month's income for around 650m people.
Everything is relative. So what if people pay a lot for this or that? If they can afford it it doesn't make it extravagant or vain.
Yebbut, 40 years ago it would have done. I'm not so much defending my own position as expressing bafflement that values of this have shifted so much in my lifetime without real comment.
And in answer to your rhetorical question, about £25.
I'm not necessarily against spending money. I've previously lamented my decision not to by a painting, which is clearly a frivolous purchase. Though if I spend money on clothing, I have to get a LOT of wear out of the item to justify it to myself. (And I don't think I've ever spent over £70 on a non-footwear clothing item; and the most I have ever spent on footwear was on a standard pair of Dr. Marten boots, which exemplify the sort of sartorial utilitarianism I favour.)
I just instinctively disapprove slightly of excess effort with one's own appearance, and of men who dress to draw attention to themselves. This is just the values of the world I grew up in. It was so ingrained it was hardly worthy of comment. And now it isn't. Do you not find this interesting?
The world you grew up in. As opposed to the world hundreds of years ago where dandyism and foppishness were celebrated.
Indeed - interesting. If only we had some 250 year olds on the board, they could tell us when this changed. My guess: WW1. It may actually be that the late 70s/80s/early 90s were the nadir for male sartorial exuberance. I remember my friend's father - who was of a slightly older generation than my own - recollecting his youth of the early 60s, when the key to attracting girls was dressing to the nines and young men would happily wear expensively tailored suits for a night out. Whereas when I was young: yes, secretly, you wanted to look good to advance your chances of meeting girls. But you very much didn't want to look like you were trying to look good.
Every era has had its code whether it was mods and rockers or burberry raincoats or stone island or adidas spezials. And most people have wanted to appear as more affluent than they are (eg the burberry and gucci keyring crazes). Ofc it is generally the gentry that cut about in moth-eaten sweaters and ancient clothes held together by baler twine.
But no, that's the point. The male youth of the 70s/80s/90s did not dress to look more affluent than they were. Baggy shirts and doc martens. Or heavy metal chic. Or punk. Or Mark E Smith out of the Fall. Or shell suits. The new romantics of the early 80s were a sort of exception to this, but even they didn't look affluent - they looked like they'd indiscriminately raided a charity shop to try to stage a pantomime.
OTOH ... I remember visiting an old university friend c 2000 and meeting her daughter who was a student. Looked like one of those Australian parakeets - mixed primary colours and simple combinations thereof eg green. Dressed from charity shops, sure, but she took care over the overall effect and the appearance. Indiscriminate she wasn't.
Cookie clearly didn't know the right sort of New Romantics.
Welcome to the UK. Write something offensive on Facebook in your own home and you get 15 months in jail. Make hundreds of indecent images of children and you don't go to jail. 2:32 pm · 16 Sep 2024"
Or, worse, he does understand what "making" means.
The offence is "making" an image, Goodwin has posted the very same. There might be criticisms of his post but Goodwin has simply reposted a standard legal term here. If there's ambiguity in the word making that's not Goodwin's fault but whoever err... 'made' the law in the first place.
Interesting who this kind of reputational damage sticks to and who it doesnt. Both Tony and Cherie were well renowned 'grabbers'. Neither coming from proper money, solicited and gladly chomped through whatever they could, but it didnt hurt Tony in office. Starmer doesnt seem to have any kind of honeymoon protection at all.
During Blair's time the economic situation was generally favourable and they were able spray money around so people didn't care very much about the Blairs "grabbing"
Lord and Lady Starmer swanning around in the finest clothes someone else's money can buy while pensioners are going to freeze this winter is a rather harder "sell"
Pensioners have been mollycoddled for far too long.
We’re all in this together.
We had a PM in Boris Johnson that dressed like a scruff, it’s good for the UK for a PM to wear the best.
Can anyone looking really tell the difference between someone whose clothes cost £150 and someone whose clothes cost £1500? If they can, that says rather more about the observer than the observed.
I can, but then I have a keen eye for this.
See the second half of my comment above
When I was young, putting a lot of effort (and certainly a lot of time and/or expense) into your appearance was a bit frowned upon. You were expected, if possible, to achieve a certain level of cleanliness and/or personal hygiene, but anything more than that was a bit suspect - a bit 'look at me'. Actually, I say 'when I was young', I suspect most of men of my generation still think that way.
Maybe that is true, but it's hardly something to be proud of, is it?
I kind of think it is. We used to consider vanity a vice rather than a virtue. We used to consider showing off something to be dissuaded. We used to mock peacockery. A certain parsimoniousness whn it comes to one's appearance seems to me to be something to be applauded. By which I don't necessarily mean turning up in a t-shirt riven with holes and ketchup stains. But I rather disdain the mindset which thinks it acceptable to spend £1000 a year or more on one's own appearance. It seems frivolous. Do you remember the book of sports lists? I remember a list in it of sportsmen who cared rather too much for their own appearance - it included, I think, Peter Shilton, who would drive to a city 30 miles away for his particular needs for a haircut, and, possibly, Kevin Keegan, who spent rather more than the then-quite-daring £5 a month on a haircut. And someone who spent a lot on clothes, no doubt. But the fact that ten such people could be picked out showed how comparatively rare that sort of vanity was in those days. If you made a list now of sportsmen who cared too much for their own appearance you'd be here until doomsday.
Do you apply these hairshirt morals to women too, or just men?
I can tell that you don't agree, Anabobz, but I'm guessing you're about my age? Do you not think values on this have shifted somewhat in our lifetimes? It's not a massive issue. I mean, of all the vices that there are, vanity/frivolousness/attention seeking is rather low on the list. But still - it strikes me as an odd change, and odd that it's so uncommented on. It's a reasonable question whether it applies in my mind to both men and women - not least because the instinctive reaction to someone who, for example, spends £30 or more on a haircut is that doing so is a bit unmanly. But on reflection, yes, I'd say I do apply these 'hairshirt morals' to women as well, or at least something similar. There is no need to spend thousands on clothes, and drawing attention to doing so, just looks a bit like conspicuous consumption.
There's a quite low upper ceiling to how good anyone - male or female - can look, and expense and effort which goes beyond that is not only wasted but also looks a bit, well, crass.
As I say above - these aren't strongly held feelings. But I feel kind of sure this is how everyone used to feel, and I don't understand how and why the dial has shifted.
See also - tattoos.
How much did your current shirt cost? I'm guessing around a month's income for around 650m people.
Everything is relative. So what if people pay a lot for this or that? If they can afford it it doesn't make it extravagant or vain.
Yebbut, 40 years ago it would have done. I'm not so much defending my own position as expressing bafflement that values of this have shifted so much in my lifetime without real comment.
And in answer to your rhetorical question, about £25.
I'm not necessarily against spending money. I've previously lamented my decision not to by a painting, which is clearly a frivolous purchase. Though if I spend money on clothing, I have to get a LOT of wear out of the item to justify it to myself. (And I don't think I've ever spent over £70 on a non-footwear clothing item; and the most I have ever spent on footwear was on a standard pair of Dr. Marten boots, which exemplify the sort of sartorial utilitarianism I favour.)
I just instinctively disapprove slightly of excess effort with one's own appearance, and of men who dress to draw attention to themselves. This is just the values of the world I grew up in. It was so ingrained it was hardly worthy of comment. And now it isn't. Do you not find this interesting?
The world you grew up in. As opposed to the world hundreds of years ago where dandyism and foppishness were celebrated.
Indeed - interesting. If only we had some 250 year olds on the board, they could tell us when this changed. My guess: WW1. It may actually be that the late 70s/80s/early 90s were the nadir for male sartorial exuberance. I remember my friend's father - who was of a slightly older generation than my own - recollecting his youth of the early 60s, when the key to attracting girls was dressing to the nines and young men would happily wear expensively tailored suits for a night out. Whereas when I was young: yes, secretly, you wanted to look good to advance your chances of meeting girls. But you very much didn't want to look like you were trying to look good.
Every era has had its code whether it was mods and rockers or burberry raincoats or stone island or adidas spezials. And most people have wanted to appear as more affluent than they are (eg the burberry and gucci keyring crazes). Ofc it is generally the gentry that cut about in moth-eaten sweaters and ancient clothes held together by baler twine.
Interesting who this kind of reputational damage sticks to and who it doesnt. Both Tony and Cherie were well renowned 'grabbers'. Neither coming from proper money, solicited and gladly chomped through whatever they could, but it didnt hurt Tony in office. Starmer doesnt seem to have any kind of honeymoon protection at all.
During Blair's time the economic situation was generally favourable and they were able spray money around so people didn't care very much about the Blairs "grabbing"
Lord and Lady Starmer swanning around in the finest clothes someone else's money can buy while pensioners are going to freeze this winter is a rather harder "sell"
Pensioners have been mollycoddled for far too long.
We’re all in this together.
We had a PM in Boris Johnson that dressed like a scruff, it’s good for the UK for a PM to wear the best.
Can anyone looking really tell the difference between someone whose clothes cost £150 and someone whose clothes cost £1500? If they can, that says rather more about the observer than the observed.
I can, but then I have a keen eye for this.
See the second half of my comment above
When I was young, putting a lot of effort (and certainly a lot of time and/or expense) into your appearance was a bit frowned upon. You were expected, if possible, to achieve a certain level of cleanliness and/or personal hygiene, but anything more than that was a bit suspect - a bit 'look at me'. Actually, I say 'when I was young', I suspect most of men of my generation still think that way.
Maybe that is true, but it's hardly something to be proud of, is it?
I kind of think it is. We used to consider vanity a vice rather than a virtue. We used to consider showing off something to be dissuaded. We used to mock peacockery. A certain parsimoniousness whn it comes to one's appearance seems to me to be something to be applauded. By which I don't necessarily mean turning up in a t-shirt riven with holes and ketchup stains. But I rather disdain the mindset which thinks it acceptable to spend £1000 a year or more on one's own appearance. It seems frivolous. Do you remember the book of sports lists? I remember a list in it of sportsmen who cared rather too much for their own appearance - it included, I think, Peter Shilton, who would drive to a city 30 miles away for his particular needs for a haircut, and, possibly, Kevin Keegan, who spent rather more than the then-quite-daring £5 a month on a haircut. And someone who spent a lot on clothes, no doubt. But the fact that ten such people could be picked out showed how comparatively rare that sort of vanity was in those days. If you made a list now of sportsmen who cared too much for their own appearance you'd be here until doomsday.
Do you apply these hairshirt morals to women too, or just men?
I can tell that you don't agree, Anabobz, but I'm guessing you're about my age? Do you not think values on this have shifted somewhat in our lifetimes? It's not a massive issue. I mean, of all the vices that there are, vanity/frivolousness/attention seeking is rather low on the list. But still - it strikes me as an odd change, and odd that it's so uncommented on. It's a reasonable question whether it applies in my mind to both men and women - not least because the instinctive reaction to someone who, for example, spends £30 or more on a haircut is that doing so is a bit unmanly. But on reflection, yes, I'd say I do apply these 'hairshirt morals' to women as well, or at least something similar. There is no need to spend thousands on clothes, and drawing attention to doing so, just looks a bit like conspicuous consumption.
There's a quite low upper ceiling to how good anyone - male or female - can look, and expense and effort which goes beyond that is not only wasted but also looks a bit, well, crass.
As I say above - these aren't strongly held feelings. But I feel kind of sure this is how everyone used to feel, and I don't understand how and why the dial has shifted.
See also - tattoos.
How much did your current shirt cost? I'm guessing around a month's income for around 650m people.
Everything is relative. So what if people pay a lot for this or that? If they can afford it it doesn't make it extravagant or vain.
Yebbut, 40 years ago it would have done. I'm not so much defending my own position as expressing bafflement that values of this have shifted so much in my lifetime without real comment.
And in answer to your rhetorical question, about £25.
I'm not necessarily against spending money. I've previously lamented my decision not to by a painting, which is clearly a frivolous purchase. Though if I spend money on clothing, I have to get a LOT of wear out of the item to justify it to myself. (And I don't think I've ever spent over £70 on a non-footwear clothing item; and the most I have ever spent on footwear was on a standard pair of Dr. Marten boots, which exemplify the sort of sartorial utilitarianism I favour.)
I just instinctively disapprove slightly of excess effort with one's own appearance, and of men who dress to draw attention to themselves. This is just the values of the world I grew up in. It was so ingrained it was hardly worthy of comment. And now it isn't. Do you not find this interesting?
The world you grew up in. As opposed to the world hundreds of years ago where dandyism and foppishness were celebrated.
Indeed - interesting. If only we had some 250 year olds on the board, they could tell us when this changed. My guess: WW1. It may actually be that the late 70s/80s/early 90s were the nadir for male sartorial exuberance. I remember my friend's father - who was of a slightly older generation than my own - recollecting his youth of the early 60s, when the key to attracting girls was dressing to the nines and young men would happily wear expensively tailored suits for a night out. Whereas when I was young: yes, secretly, you wanted to look good to advance your chances of meeting girls. But you very much didn't want to look like you were trying to look good.
Every era has had its code whether it was mods and rockers or burberry raincoats or stone island or adidas spezials. And most people have wanted to appear as more affluent than they are (eg the burberry and gucci keyring crazes). Ofc it is generally the gentry that cut about in moth-eaten sweaters and ancient clothes held together by baler twine.
But no, that's the point. The male youth of the 70s/80s/90s did not dress to look more affluent than they were. Baggy shirts and doc martens. Or heavy metal chic. Or punk. Or Mark E Smith out of the Fall. Or shell suits. The new romantics of the early 80s were a sort of exception to this, but even they didn't look affluent - they looked like they'd indiscriminately raided a charity shop to try to stage a pantomime.
Your kidding, right? That was the heart of the burberry raincoat/gucci keyring era. And it was a global phenomenon.
You see, I got more clothes than Muhammad Ali and I dress so viciously I got bodyguards, I got two big cars, that definitely ain't the wack I got a Lincoln Continental and a sunroof Cadillac So after school, I take a dip in the pool, which is really on the wall I got a color TV so I can see the Knicks play basketball Hear me talking 'bout checkbooks, credit cards, more money a than a sucker could ever spend
etc
I'd suggest that sort of people are unrepresentative.
Interesting who this kind of reputational damage sticks to and who it doesnt. Both Tony and Cherie were well renowned 'grabbers'. Neither coming from proper money, solicited and gladly chomped through whatever they could, but it didnt hurt Tony in office. Starmer doesnt seem to have any kind of honeymoon protection at all.
During Blair's time the economic situation was generally favourable and they were able spray money around so people didn't care very much about the Blairs "grabbing"
Lord and Lady Starmer swanning around in the finest clothes someone else's money can buy while pensioners are going to freeze this winter is a rather harder "sell"
Pensioners have been mollycoddled for far too long.
We’re all in this together.
We had a PM in Boris Johnson that dressed like a scruff, it’s good for the UK for a PM to wear the best.
Can anyone looking really tell the difference between someone whose clothes cost £150 and someone whose clothes cost £1500? If they can, that says rather more about the observer than the observed.
I can, but then I have a keen eye for this.
See the second half of my comment above
When I was young, putting a lot of effort (and certainly a lot of time and/or expense) into your appearance was a bit frowned upon. You were expected, if possible, to achieve a certain level of cleanliness and/or personal hygiene, but anything more than that was a bit suspect - a bit 'look at me'. Actually, I say 'when I was young', I suspect most of men of my generation still think that way.
Maybe that is true, but it's hardly something to be proud of, is it?
I kind of think it is. We used to consider vanity a vice rather than a virtue. We used to consider showing off something to be dissuaded. We used to mock peacockery. A certain parsimoniousness whn it comes to one's appearance seems to me to be something to be applauded. By which I don't necessarily mean turning up in a t-shirt riven with holes and ketchup stains. But I rather disdain the mindset which thinks it acceptable to spend £1000 a year or more on one's own appearance. It seems frivolous. Do you remember the book of sports lists? I remember a list in it of sportsmen who cared rather too much for their own appearance - it included, I think, Peter Shilton, who would drive to a city 30 miles away for his particular needs for a haircut, and, possibly, Kevin Keegan, who spent rather more than the then-quite-daring £5 a month on a haircut. And someone who spent a lot on clothes, no doubt. But the fact that ten such people could be picked out showed how comparatively rare that sort of vanity was in those days. If you made a list now of sportsmen who cared too much for their own appearance you'd be here until doomsday.
Do you apply these hairshirt morals to women too, or just men?
I can tell that you don't agree, Anabobz, but I'm guessing you're about my age? Do you not think values on this have shifted somewhat in our lifetimes? It's not a massive issue. I mean, of all the vices that there are, vanity/frivolousness/attention seeking is rather low on the list. But still - it strikes me as an odd change, and odd that it's so uncommented on. It's a reasonable question whether it applies in my mind to both men and women - not least because the instinctive reaction to someone who, for example, spends £30 or more on a haircut is that doing so is a bit unmanly. But on reflection, yes, I'd say I do apply these 'hairshirt morals' to women as well, or at least something similar. There is no need to spend thousands on clothes, and drawing attention to doing so, just looks a bit like conspicuous consumption.
There's a quite low upper ceiling to how good anyone - male or female - can look, and expense and effort which goes beyond that is not only wasted but also looks a bit, well, crass.
As I say above - these aren't strongly held feelings. But I feel kind of sure this is how everyone used to feel, and I don't understand how and why the dial has shifted.
See also - tattoos.
How much did your current shirt cost? I'm guessing around a month's income for around 650m people.
Everything is relative. So what if people pay a lot for this or that? If they can afford it it doesn't make it extravagant or vain.
Yebbut, 40 years ago it would have done. I'm not so much defending my own position as expressing bafflement that values of this have shifted so much in my lifetime without real comment.
And in answer to your rhetorical question, about £25.
I'm not necessarily against spending money. I've previously lamented my decision not to by a painting, which is clearly a frivolous purchase. Though if I spend money on clothing, I have to get a LOT of wear out of the item to justify it to myself. (And I don't think I've ever spent over £70 on a non-footwear clothing item; and the most I have ever spent on footwear was on a standard pair of Dr. Marten boots, which exemplify the sort of sartorial utilitarianism I favour.)
I just instinctively disapprove slightly of excess effort with one's own appearance, and of men who dress to draw attention to themselves. This is just the values of the world I grew up in. It was so ingrained it was hardly worthy of comment. And now it isn't. Do you not find this interesting?
The world you grew up in. As opposed to the world hundreds of years ago where dandyism and foppishness were celebrated.
Indeed - interesting. If only we had some 250 year olds on the board, they could tell us when this changed. My guess: WW1. It may actually be that the late 70s/80s/early 90s were the nadir for male sartorial exuberance. I remember my friend's father - who was of a slightly older generation than my own - recollecting his youth of the early 60s, when the key to attracting girls was dressing to the nines and young men would happily wear expensively tailored suits for a night out. Whereas when I was young: yes, secretly, you wanted to look good to advance your chances of meeting girls. But you very much didn't want to look like you were trying to look good.
Every era has had its code whether it was mods and rockers or burberry raincoats or stone island or adidas spezials. And most people have wanted to appear as more affluent than they are (eg the burberry and gucci keyring crazes). Ofc it is generally the gentry that cut about in moth-eaten sweaters and ancient clothes held together by baler twine.
Interesting who this kind of reputational damage sticks to and who it doesnt. Both Tony and Cherie were well renowned 'grabbers'. Neither coming from proper money, solicited and gladly chomped through whatever they could, but it didnt hurt Tony in office. Starmer doesnt seem to have any kind of honeymoon protection at all.
During Blair's time the economic situation was generally favourable and they were able spray money around so people didn't care very much about the Blairs "grabbing"
Lord and Lady Starmer swanning around in the finest clothes someone else's money can buy while pensioners are going to freeze this winter is a rather harder "sell"
Pensioners have been mollycoddled for far too long.
We’re all in this together.
We had a PM in Boris Johnson that dressed like a scruff, it’s good for the UK for a PM to wear the best.
Can anyone looking really tell the difference between someone whose clothes cost £150 and someone whose clothes cost £1500? If they can, that says rather more about the observer than the observed.
I can, but then I have a keen eye for this.
See the second half of my comment above
When I was young, putting a lot of effort (and certainly a lot of time and/or expense) into your appearance was a bit frowned upon. You were expected, if possible, to achieve a certain level of cleanliness and/or personal hygiene, but anything more than that was a bit suspect - a bit 'look at me'. Actually, I say 'when I was young', I suspect most of men of my generation still think that way.
Maybe that is true, but it's hardly something to be proud of, is it?
I kind of think it is. We used to consider vanity a vice rather than a virtue. We used to consider showing off something to be dissuaded. We used to mock peacockery. A certain parsimoniousness whn it comes to one's appearance seems to me to be something to be applauded. By which I don't necessarily mean turning up in a t-shirt riven with holes and ketchup stains. But I rather disdain the mindset which thinks it acceptable to spend £1000 a year or more on one's own appearance. It seems frivolous. Do you remember the book of sports lists? I remember a list in it of sportsmen who cared rather too much for their own appearance - it included, I think, Peter Shilton, who would drive to a city 30 miles away for his particular needs for a haircut, and, possibly, Kevin Keegan, who spent rather more than the then-quite-daring £5 a month on a haircut. And someone who spent a lot on clothes, no doubt. But the fact that ten such people could be picked out showed how comparatively rare that sort of vanity was in those days. If you made a list now of sportsmen who cared too much for their own appearance you'd be here until doomsday.
Do you apply these hairshirt morals to women too, or just men?
I can tell that you don't agree, Anabobz, but I'm guessing you're about my age? Do you not think values on this have shifted somewhat in our lifetimes? It's not a massive issue. I mean, of all the vices that there are, vanity/frivolousness/attention seeking is rather low on the list. But still - it strikes me as an odd change, and odd that it's so uncommented on. It's a reasonable question whether it applies in my mind to both men and women - not least because the instinctive reaction to someone who, for example, spends £30 or more on a haircut is that doing so is a bit unmanly. But on reflection, yes, I'd say I do apply these 'hairshirt morals' to women as well, or at least something similar. There is no need to spend thousands on clothes, and drawing attention to doing so, just looks a bit like conspicuous consumption.
There's a quite low upper ceiling to how good anyone - male or female - can look, and expense and effort which goes beyond that is not only wasted but also looks a bit, well, crass.
As I say above - these aren't strongly held feelings. But I feel kind of sure this is how everyone used to feel, and I don't understand how and why the dial has shifted.
See also - tattoos.
How much did your current shirt cost? I'm guessing around a month's income for around 650m people.
Everything is relative. So what if people pay a lot for this or that? If they can afford it it doesn't make it extravagant or vain.
Yebbut, 40 years ago it would have done. I'm not so much defending my own position as expressing bafflement that values of this have shifted so much in my lifetime without real comment.
And in answer to your rhetorical question, about £25.
I'm not necessarily against spending money. I've previously lamented my decision not to by a painting, which is clearly a frivolous purchase. Though if I spend money on clothing, I have to get a LOT of wear out of the item to justify it to myself. (And I don't think I've ever spent over £70 on a non-footwear clothing item; and the most I have ever spent on footwear was on a standard pair of Dr. Marten boots, which exemplify the sort of sartorial utilitarianism I favour.)
I just instinctively disapprove slightly of excess effort with one's own appearance, and of men who dress to draw attention to themselves. This is just the values of the world I grew up in. It was so ingrained it was hardly worthy of comment. And now it isn't. Do you not find this interesting?
The world you grew up in. As opposed to the world hundreds of years ago where dandyism and foppishness were celebrated.
Indeed - interesting. If only we had some 250 year olds on the board, they could tell us when this changed. My guess: WW1. It may actually be that the late 70s/80s/early 90s were the nadir for male sartorial exuberance. I remember my friend's father - who was of a slightly older generation than my own - recollecting his youth of the early 60s, when the key to attracting girls was dressing to the nines and young men would happily wear expensively tailored suits for a night out. Whereas when I was young: yes, secretly, you wanted to look good to advance your chances of meeting girls. But you very much didn't want to look like you were trying to look good.
Every era has had its code whether it was mods and rockers or burberry raincoats or stone island or adidas spezials. And most people have wanted to appear as more affluent than they are (eg the burberry and gucci keyring crazes). Ofc it is generally the gentry that cut about in moth-eaten sweaters and ancient clothes held together by baler twine.
But no, that's the point. The male youth of the 70s/80s/90s did not dress to look more affluent than they were. Baggy shirts and doc martens. Or heavy metal chic. Or punk. Or Mark E Smith out of the Fall. Or shell suits. The new romantics of the early 80s were a sort of exception to this, but even they didn't look affluent - they looked like they'd indiscriminately raided a charity shop to try to stage a pantomime.
Your kidding, right? That was the heart of the burberry raincoat/gucci keyring era. And it was a global phenomenon.
You see, I got more clothes than Muhammad Ali and I dress so viciously I got bodyguards, I got two big cars, that definitely ain't the wack I got a Lincoln Continental and a sunroof Cadillac So after school, I take a dip in the pool, which is really on the wall I got a color TV so I can see the Knicks play basketball Hear me talking 'bout checkbooks, credit cards, more money a than a sucker could ever spend
etc
I'd suggest that sort of people are unrepresentative.
Welcome to the UK. Write something offensive on Facebook in your own home and you get 15 months in jail. Make hundreds of indecent images of children and you don't go to jail. 2:32 pm · 16 Sep 2024"
A dodgy attempt to push a person in the same area of the country as me into pleading guilty, he refused. It got referred to crown court and then the CPS dropped the prosecution on the day, yet the man involved still got a telling off from the judge, when it was the CPS who had wasted everyone's time. From the local journalist reporting: n an address to Judge Nicholas Barker, prosecutor Tim Evans said the prosecution had, following a review of the case, taken the view that it was not in the public interest to proceed. As a result, the case against Mr Glaister was being discontinued.
That decision was formally conveyed to Mr Glaister by Judge Barker, who concluded it had been “quite proper” for police to have taken action in the county early last month during a “period of great sensitivity”.
It had not been “necessary”, said the judge, for the prosecution to proceed with the case, meaning that Mr Glaister faces no further action.
“You are now very much on the police’s radar,” said Judge Barker as he issued advice about any online use going forward. “You will understand that posting material on the internet, whether that is on your social media or your platforms can — and does — constitute criminal offences and can have serious repercussions, and you should take great care in future.”
I cant think of anything more outrageous from the judge. How dare he.
Welcome to the UK. Write something offensive on Facebook in your own home and you get 15 months in jail. Make hundreds of indecent images of children and you don't go to jail. 2:32 pm · 16 Sep 2024"
Or, worse, he does understand what "making" means.
The offence is "making" an image, Goodwin has posted the very same. There might be criticisms of his post but Goodwin has simply reposted a standard legal term here. If there's ambiguity in the word making that's not Goodwin's fault but whoever err... 'made' the law in the first place.
Not if he knows it's commonly misunderstood and is exploiting the naivety of his audience for clicks.
This is all bollocks. PB has determined that anyone who supports Trump is a crank and a lunatic. It can't be that close so someone has blundered.
Either that or PB is talking through its heart not its head.
Trump is going to win.
And to support him requires arguments so tortuous on subjects like sexual assault and truth telling and insurrection and being unwilling to accept defeat that 'crank and lunatic' could be regarded as convenient shorthand. And it is noteworthy how few of his supporters are prepared to make the difficult argument his case requires.
But Trump is going to win.
At this point I think Trump wins, depite the polling. The polls find it hard to detect low info voters and they are nearly all Trump voters.
Also he has a much better approval rating than the last two runs, and Harris is doing worse than both Biden and Clinton at this point. He will win PA, AZ and perhaps MI and GA atleast.
Pollsters make adjustments between elections, because they don't like being wrong. If they failed to pick up on a type of voter last time, they will adjust their weightings of them in future.
That said, the weightings are never perfect. The pollsters will underweight some group this time around, it's just that we won't know for sure which groups are underweighted until after the election. It could be, for example, that young women are underweighted this time, because of Roe v Wade. Or it might be that it is rural voters who come out in much greater numbers.
If you bet - whether in the UK or in the US - on pollasters simply being wrong in the same direction as the last election, then you will lose a lot of money.
As in this country, the problem is pollsters trying (and failing) to correct sampling errors with massive weighting.
This is all bollocks. PB has determined that anyone who supports Trump is a crank and a lunatic. It can't be that close so someone has blundered.
Either that or PB is talking through its heart not its head.
It's bollocks that it's very close?
I personally am not keen for Trump to win again, but the header is spot on: it is incredibly tight.
Yes true. Good header. The bollocks bit is the denial of PB-ers that this is in fact the case. Or incomprehension that it could ever be.
There are only three or four PBers who claim to “know” the result. Pretty everyone else accepts it’s close. So I’m not sure of your point!
My point is that the majority of bien pensant, Guardian-adjacent PB-ers can't fathom how on earth such a transparent idiot as Trump could be anywhere close to being about to be the next POTUS.
Who are these people? I think pretty much everyone says it’s on a knife edge with about three or four self-appointed Nostradami on both sides of the bet who are seemingly in possession of a functioning crystal ball.
You are missing the point and there is a limit to how often I'm going to explain it.
If you give me a five pound note I'll give it one more go.
Welcome to the UK. Write something offensive on Facebook in your own home and you get 15 months in jail. Make hundreds of indecent images of children and you don't go to jail. 2:32 pm · 16 Sep 2024"
When the State feels threatened - i.e. when there is riot and disorder on the streets - then it will come down hard on those involved, including those egging on the rioters on social media.
This is normal, even if the social media angle is a bit new to some people.
Being a bit lenient on someone for a first offence, where they've pleaded guilty, etc, this is also not unusual.
There is no contradiction between the two situations and sentences.
Interesting who this kind of reputational damage sticks to and who it doesnt. Both Tony and Cherie were well renowned 'grabbers'. Neither coming from proper money, solicited and gladly chomped through whatever they could, but it didnt hurt Tony in office. Starmer doesnt seem to have any kind of honeymoon protection at all.
During Blair's time the economic situation was generally favourable and they were able spray money around so people didn't care very much about the Blairs "grabbing"
Lord and Lady Starmer swanning around in the finest clothes someone else's money can buy while pensioners are going to freeze this winter is a rather harder "sell"
Pensioners have been mollycoddled for far too long.
We’re all in this together.
We had a PM in Boris Johnson that dressed like a scruff, it’s good for the UK for a PM to wear the best.
Can anyone looking really tell the difference between someone whose clothes cost £150 and someone whose clothes cost £1500? If they can, that says rather more about the observer than the observed.
I can, but then I have a keen eye for this.
See the second half of my comment above
When I was young, putting a lot of effort (and certainly a lot of time and/or expense) into your appearance was a bit frowned upon. You were expected, if possible, to achieve a certain level of cleanliness and/or personal hygiene, but anything more than that was a bit suspect - a bit 'look at me'. Actually, I say 'when I was young', I suspect most of men of my generation still think that way.
Maybe that is true, but it's hardly something to be proud of, is it?
I kind of think it is. We used to consider vanity a vice rather than a virtue. We used to consider showing off something to be dissuaded. We used to mock peacockery. A certain parsimoniousness whn it comes to one's appearance seems to me to be something to be applauded. By which I don't necessarily mean turning up in a t-shirt riven with holes and ketchup stains. But I rather disdain the mindset which thinks it acceptable to spend £1000 a year or more on one's own appearance. It seems frivolous. Do you remember the book of sports lists? I remember a list in it of sportsmen who cared rather too much for their own appearance - it included, I think, Peter Shilton, who would drive to a city 30 miles away for his particular needs for a haircut, and, possibly, Kevin Keegan, who spent rather more than the then-quite-daring £5 a month on a haircut. And someone who spent a lot on clothes, no doubt. But the fact that ten such people could be picked out showed how comparatively rare that sort of vanity was in those days. If you made a list now of sportsmen who cared too much for their own appearance you'd be here until doomsday.
Do you apply these hairshirt morals to women too, or just men?
I can tell that you don't agree, Anabobz, but I'm guessing you're about my age? Do you not think values on this have shifted somewhat in our lifetimes? It's not a massive issue. I mean, of all the vices that there are, vanity/frivolousness/attention seeking is rather low on the list. But still - it strikes me as an odd change, and odd that it's so uncommented on. It's a reasonable question whether it applies in my mind to both men and women - not least because the instinctive reaction to someone who, for example, spends £30 or more on a haircut is that doing so is a bit unmanly. But on reflection, yes, I'd say I do apply these 'hairshirt morals' to women as well, or at least something similar. There is no need to spend thousands on clothes, and drawing attention to doing so, just looks a bit like conspicuous consumption.
There's a quite low upper ceiling to how good anyone - male or female - can look, and expense and effort which goes beyond that is not only wasted but also looks a bit, well, crass.
As I say above - these aren't strongly held feelings. But I feel kind of sure this is how everyone used to feel, and I don't understand how and why the dial has shifted.
See also - tattoos.
How much did your current shirt cost? I'm guessing around a month's income for around 650m people.
Everything is relative. So what if people pay a lot for this or that? If they can afford it it doesn't make it extravagant or vain.
Yebbut, 40 years ago it would have done. I'm not so much defending my own position as expressing bafflement that values of this have shifted so much in my lifetime without real comment.
And in answer to your rhetorical question, about £25.
I'm not necessarily against spending money. I've previously lamented my decision not to by a painting, which is clearly a frivolous purchase. Though if I spend money on clothing, I have to get a LOT of wear out of the item to justify it to myself. (And I don't think I've ever spent over £70 on a non-footwear clothing item; and the most I have ever spent on footwear was on a standard pair of Dr. Marten boots, which exemplify the sort of sartorial utilitarianism I favour.)
I just instinctively disapprove slightly of excess effort with one's own appearance, and of men who dress to draw attention to themselves. This is just the values of the world I grew up in. It was so ingrained it was hardly worthy of comment. And now it isn't. Do you not find this interesting?
The world you grew up in. As opposed to the world hundreds of years ago where dandyism and foppishness were celebrated.
Indeed - interesting. If only we had some 250 year olds on the board, they could tell us when this changed. My guess: WW1. It may actually be that the late 70s/80s/early 90s were the nadir for male sartorial exuberance. I remember my friend's father - who was of a slightly older generation than my own - recollecting his youth of the early 60s, when the key to attracting girls was dressing to the nines and young men would happily wear expensively tailored suits for a night out. Whereas when I was young: yes, secretly, you wanted to look good to advance your chances of meeting girls. But you very much didn't want to look like you were trying to look good.
Every era has had its code whether it was mods and rockers or burberry raincoats or stone island or adidas spezials. And most people have wanted to appear as more affluent than they are (eg the burberry and gucci keyring crazes). Ofc it is generally the gentry that cut about in moth-eaten sweaters and ancient clothes held together by baler twine.
Interesting who this kind of reputational damage sticks to and who it doesnt. Both Tony and Cherie were well renowned 'grabbers'. Neither coming from proper money, solicited and gladly chomped through whatever they could, but it didnt hurt Tony in office. Starmer doesnt seem to have any kind of honeymoon protection at all.
During Blair's time the economic situation was generally favourable and they were able spray money around so people didn't care very much about the Blairs "grabbing"
Lord and Lady Starmer swanning around in the finest clothes someone else's money can buy while pensioners are going to freeze this winter is a rather harder "sell"
Pensioners have been mollycoddled for far too long.
We’re all in this together.
We had a PM in Boris Johnson that dressed like a scruff, it’s good for the UK for a PM to wear the best.
Can anyone looking really tell the difference between someone whose clothes cost £150 and someone whose clothes cost £1500? If they can, that says rather more about the observer than the observed.
I can, but then I have a keen eye for this.
See the second half of my comment above
When I was young, putting a lot of effort (and certainly a lot of time and/or expense) into your appearance was a bit frowned upon. You were expected, if possible, to achieve a certain level of cleanliness and/or personal hygiene, but anything more than that was a bit suspect - a bit 'look at me'. Actually, I say 'when I was young', I suspect most of men of my generation still think that way.
Maybe that is true, but it's hardly something to be proud of, is it?
I kind of think it is. We used to consider vanity a vice rather than a virtue. We used to consider showing off something to be dissuaded. We used to mock peacockery. A certain parsimoniousness whn it comes to one's appearance seems to me to be something to be applauded. By which I don't necessarily mean turning up in a t-shirt riven with holes and ketchup stains. But I rather disdain the mindset which thinks it acceptable to spend £1000 a year or more on one's own appearance. It seems frivolous. Do you remember the book of sports lists? I remember a list in it of sportsmen who cared rather too much for their own appearance - it included, I think, Peter Shilton, who would drive to a city 30 miles away for his particular needs for a haircut, and, possibly, Kevin Keegan, who spent rather more than the then-quite-daring £5 a month on a haircut. And someone who spent a lot on clothes, no doubt. But the fact that ten such people could be picked out showed how comparatively rare that sort of vanity was in those days. If you made a list now of sportsmen who cared too much for their own appearance you'd be here until doomsday.
Do you apply these hairshirt morals to women too, or just men?
I can tell that you don't agree, Anabobz, but I'm guessing you're about my age? Do you not think values on this have shifted somewhat in our lifetimes? It's not a massive issue. I mean, of all the vices that there are, vanity/frivolousness/attention seeking is rather low on the list. But still - it strikes me as an odd change, and odd that it's so uncommented on. It's a reasonable question whether it applies in my mind to both men and women - not least because the instinctive reaction to someone who, for example, spends £30 or more on a haircut is that doing so is a bit unmanly. But on reflection, yes, I'd say I do apply these 'hairshirt morals' to women as well, or at least something similar. There is no need to spend thousands on clothes, and drawing attention to doing so, just looks a bit like conspicuous consumption.
There's a quite low upper ceiling to how good anyone - male or female - can look, and expense and effort which goes beyond that is not only wasted but also looks a bit, well, crass.
As I say above - these aren't strongly held feelings. But I feel kind of sure this is how everyone used to feel, and I don't understand how and why the dial has shifted.
See also - tattoos.
How much did your current shirt cost? I'm guessing around a month's income for around 650m people.
Everything is relative. So what if people pay a lot for this or that? If they can afford it it doesn't make it extravagant or vain.
Yebbut, 40 years ago it would have done. I'm not so much defending my own position as expressing bafflement that values of this have shifted so much in my lifetime without real comment.
And in answer to your rhetorical question, about £25.
I'm not necessarily against spending money. I've previously lamented my decision not to by a painting, which is clearly a frivolous purchase. Though if I spend money on clothing, I have to get a LOT of wear out of the item to justify it to myself. (And I don't think I've ever spent over £70 on a non-footwear clothing item; and the most I have ever spent on footwear was on a standard pair of Dr. Marten boots, which exemplify the sort of sartorial utilitarianism I favour.)
I just instinctively disapprove slightly of excess effort with one's own appearance, and of men who dress to draw attention to themselves. This is just the values of the world I grew up in. It was so ingrained it was hardly worthy of comment. And now it isn't. Do you not find this interesting?
The world you grew up in. As opposed to the world hundreds of years ago where dandyism and foppishness were celebrated.
Indeed - interesting. If only we had some 250 year olds on the board, they could tell us when this changed. My guess: WW1. It may actually be that the late 70s/80s/early 90s were the nadir for male sartorial exuberance. I remember my friend's father - who was of a slightly older generation than my own - recollecting his youth of the early 60s, when the key to attracting girls was dressing to the nines and young men would happily wear expensively tailored suits for a night out. Whereas when I was young: yes, secretly, you wanted to look good to advance your chances of meeting girls. But you very much didn't want to look like you were trying to look good.
Every era has had its code whether it was mods and rockers or burberry raincoats or stone island or adidas spezials. And most people have wanted to appear as more affluent than they are (eg the burberry and gucci keyring crazes). Ofc it is generally the gentry that cut about in moth-eaten sweaters and ancient clothes held together by baler twine.
But no, that's the point. The male youth of the 70s/80s/90s did not dress to look more affluent than they were. Baggy shirts and doc martens. Or heavy metal chic. Or punk. Or Mark E Smith out of the Fall. Or shell suits. The new romantics of the early 80s were a sort of exception to this, but even they didn't look affluent - they looked like they'd indiscriminately raided a charity shop to try to stage a pantomime.
OTOH ... I remember visiting an old university friend c 2000 and meeting her daughter who was a student. Looked like one of those Australian parakeets - mixed primary colours and simple combinations thereof eg green. Dressed from charity shops, sure, but she took care over the overall effect and the appearance. Indiscriminate she wasn't.
Cookie clearly didn't know the right sort of New Romantics.
No, new romantics had come and gone by the time I got there! In my early teens I was largely surrounded by people who dressed in the heavy metal style - clearly there is some sort of uniform/look there, but smartness and expense and indeed cleanliness isn't really part of it. Then later on I was surrounded by Madchester baggy - again, driven by cheapness - and later by generic indie: plaid shirts and jeans or perhaps combats and doc martens. The 'other' tribe were the townies, who dressed largely in track suits. Expense and style were not apparent there either.
But in all honesty expensive clothing would be wasted on me. I look vaguely scruffy in anything I wear. I am fat and hairy. Looking at pictures of a younger me, very occasionally I looked brilliant in a way in which I never really appreciated and makes me sigh wistfully, but more often I just look in need of a haircut. I was always in need of a haircut, any time outside of six days since I had last had a haircut. I wish I'd discovered self-maintenance of hair earlier - I may have sacrificed the occasional youthfully brilliant hair day fresh out of the barbers, but I'd have had reliably neat hair, and that would have made the difference to the overall look.
I've never been in the least bit tempted by expensive clothes, with one exception: last year, as we had parked there for a walk, we popped in to the wonderful House of Bruar in northern Perthshire: everything the Highland laird needs - and I was instantly struck by a lament that I would never have need or occasion to wear a full high quality tweed suit. It passed, of course - it would also have needed me to be 20 years younger and with an entirely different lifestyle - i.e. heir to some Highland estate. How there is a big enough market for this sort of stuff for this business to stay operational I have no idea.
This is all bollocks. PB has determined that anyone who supports Trump is a crank and a lunatic. It can't be that close so someone has blundered.
Either that or PB is talking through its heart not its head.
We saw similar with Brexit. At the Uni all my colleagues expressed surprise at the result - no-one they knew voted for Brexit. They failed to see the self-selected bubble that they lived in.
Trump is the same. Almost all on PB see him as an extremely dangerous threat to democracy and potentially the free world. No-one can understand the mentality of someone in the US would is a supporter.
More or less true but two qualifications. With Brexit, lots of London professional types would say at first that everyone they knew was for Remain, but when examining carefully they knew perfectly well that the secretaries, cleaners, tea ladies, footmen, window cleaners and taxi drivers included a lot of Leavers. But actually (and this was truly significant to the result and why it happened) they didn't think they really counted.
With Trump, he is dangerous and deranged. It is not at all difficult to see why people vote for him, and also that the same people are not all that good at giving a rational account of why.
My rule of thumb is that, given the past polling has tended to underestimate Trump's vote rather than overestimate Clinton / Biden's, any state where Harris is polling
Betting on pollsters to not to change their models is a losing strategy: I would point you to Nate Silver, who currently rates Trump as slight favourite, for the best evidence of this.
That is a very fair point but, in 2020 we have adjustments that were supposed to rectify for 2016's errors and they didn't. The question is not so much will the models be changed - they will - but whether the changes are the right ones.
They did. And in fact, they were actually worse in 2020 than in 2016, overstating Biden's lead - on average - by 3.6%. If there is a similar overstatement this time, then it will be President Trump again.
On the other hand, if the polling error is the other way around, then it will be a comfortable Biden victory.
Just assuming that the error will be the same way for a third time in a row is - I think - naive. It might be. It might not be. But pollsters do strive to be accurate, and there have been some very significant changes. For example, in 2016 the vast majority of polls from big name pollsters were phone polls. In 2020, it was 50/50 between phone polls and online. And this time around, online panels are much more common.
Now, I don't know what difference this makes in the US context. But I do remember that in the Brexit referendum in the UK, the phone pollsters predicted a Remain win, while the online panels predicted a Brexit one. And it was the online panels which were right.
This is all bollocks. PB has determined that anyone who supports Trump is a crank and a lunatic. It can't be that close so someone has blundered.
Either that or PB is talking through its heart not its head.
Trump is going to win.
And to support him requires arguments so tortuous on subjects like sexual assault and truth telling and insurrection and being unwilling to accept defeat that 'crank and lunatic' could be regarded as convenient shorthand. And it is noteworthy how few of his supporters are prepared to make the difficult argument his case requires.
But Trump is going to win.
At this point I think Trump wins, depite the polling. The polls find it hard to detect low info voters and they are nearly all Trump voters.
Also he has a much better approval rating than the last two runs, and Harris is doing worse than both Biden and Clinton at this point. He will win PA, AZ and perhaps MI and GA atleast.
Pollsters make adjustments between elections, because they don't like being wrong. If they failed to pick up on a type of voter last time, they will adjust their weightings of them in future.
That said, the weightings are never perfect. The pollsters will underweight some group this time around, it's just that we won't know for sure which groups are underweighted until after the election. It could be, for example, that young women are underweighted this time, because of Roe v Wade. Or it might be that it is rural voters who come out in much greater numbers.
If you bet - whether in the UK or in the US - on pollasters simply being wrong in the same direction as the last election, then you will lose a lot of money.
Steering using the rear view mirror, without knowing what bends are in the road ahead.
There was a small point in a BBC story someone linked to the other day, which may help, a little, to explain Trump support, and why he is losing a little, among some groups. The BBC, following, I suppose, their style guide, called pro-life activist Lila Rose, "Ms. Rose". https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62r2y62rwro
That seemed unlikely to me, so I looked her up and learned that Rose is married and has three children -- which, in my experience, is the minimum for pro-life women activists. They love children, and have more than the average.
And they almost all prefer being a Mrs. to being a Ms. Most would even prefer being a Miss to being a Ms.
These women pick up on the contempt that so many stylish leftists have for women who make the choices they do. Which often makes them support leaders like George W. Bush, and vulnerable to demgogues like the Loser.
They are, I think, now beginning to pick up on the contempt that Trump has for everyone, but especially women.
(Years ago, Gallup did a survey and found that abortion single-issue voters in the US were mostly women -- and that pro-life women outnumbered pro-choice women, by, as I recall, about 3-2. I haven't looked for more recent numbers.)
This is all bollocks. PB has determined that anyone who supports Trump is a crank and a lunatic. It can't be that close so someone has blundered.
Either that or PB is talking through its heart not its head.
Trump is going to win.
And to support him requires arguments so tortuous on subjects like sexual assault and truth telling and insurrection and being unwilling to accept defeat that 'crank and lunatic' could be regarded as convenient shorthand. And it is noteworthy how few of his supporters are prepared to make the difficult argument his case requires.
But Trump is going to win.
At this point I think Trump wins, depite the polling. The polls find it hard to detect low info voters and they are nearly all Trump voters.
Also he has a much better approval rating than the last two runs, and Harris is doing worse than both Biden and Clinton at this point. He will win PA, AZ and perhaps MI and GA atleast.
Pollsters make adjustments between elections, because they don't like being wrong. If they failed to pick up on a type of voter last time, they will adjust their weightings of them in future.
That said, the weightings are never perfect. The pollsters will underweight some group this time around, it's just that we won't know for sure which groups are underweighted until after the election. It could be, for example, that young women are underweighted this time, because of Roe v Wade. Or it might be that it is rural voters who come out in much greater numbers.
If you bet - whether in the UK or in the US - on pollasters simply being wrong in the same direction as the last election, then you will lose a lot of money.
As in this country, the problem is pollsters trying (and failing) to correct sampling errors with massive weighting.
Well, this is where I think online panels help. Because 99% of the time, as every YouGov panel member knows, they aren't asking about politics: they're asking about dish soap.
I therefore think they will tend to find people for whom $5 for 15 minutes work online is good money.
This is all bollocks. PB has determined that anyone who supports Trump is a crank and a lunatic. It can't be that close so someone has blundered.
Either that or PB is talking through its heart not its head.
Trump is going to win.
And to support him requires arguments so tortuous on subjects like sexual assault and truth telling and insurrection and being unwilling to accept defeat that 'crank and lunatic' could be regarded as convenient shorthand. And it is noteworthy how few of his supporters are prepared to make the difficult argument his case requires.
But Trump is going to win.
At this point I think Trump wins, depite the polling. The polls find it hard to detect low info voters and they are nearly all Trump voters.
Also he has a much better approval rating than the last two runs, and Harris is doing worse than both Biden and Clinton at this point. He will win PA, AZ and perhaps MI and GA atleast.
Pollsters make adjustments between elections, because they don't like being wrong. If they failed to pick up on a type of voter last time, they will adjust their weightings of them in future.
That said, the weightings are never perfect. The pollsters will underweight some group this time around, it's just that we won't know for sure which groups are underweighted until after the election. It could be, for example, that young women are underweighted this time, because of Roe v Wade. Or it might be that it is rural voters who come out in much greater numbers.
If you bet - whether in the UK or in the US - on pollasters simply being wrong in the same direction as the last election, then you will lose a lot of money.
As in this country, the problem is pollsters trying (and failing) to correct sampling errors with massive weighting.
I'd guess it's rather more difficult than in this country, trying to extrapolate local results from national polling ?
Given that different pollsters will apply their own particular adjustments (which may or may not be in the region of being valid) to account for difficulty in sampling in a way that captures the current electorate, how do the modellers then apply their own adjustment in a manner which rises above the level of guesswork ?
This is all bollocks. PB has determined that anyone who supports Trump is a crank and a lunatic. It can't be that close so someone has blundered.
Either that or PB is talking through its heart not its head.
Trump is going to win.
And to support him requires arguments so tortuous on subjects like sexual assault and truth telling and insurrection and being unwilling to accept defeat that 'crank and lunatic' could be regarded as convenient shorthand. And it is noteworthy how few of his supporters are prepared to make the difficult argument his case requires.
But Trump is going to win.
At this point I think Trump wins, depite the polling. The polls find it hard to detect low info voters and they are nearly all Trump voters.
Also he has a much better approval rating than the last two runs, and Harris is doing worse than both Biden and Clinton at this point. He will win PA, AZ and perhaps MI and GA atleast.
Pollsters make adjustments between elections, because they don't like being wrong. If they failed to pick up on a type of voter last time, they will adjust their weightings of them in future.
That said, the weightings are never perfect. The pollsters will underweight some group this time around, it's just that we won't know for sure which groups are underweighted until after the election. It could be, for example, that young women are underweighted this time, because of Roe v Wade. Or it might be that it is rural voters who come out in much greater numbers.
If you bet - whether in the UK or in the US - on pollasters simply being wrong in the same direction as the last election, then you will lose a lot of money.
Steering using the rear view mirror, without knowing what bends are in the road ahead.
This sentence describes the human condition generally. Our sense of custom and continuity means that the completely blank nature of the future, even as we steer towards it, is itself hidden from us. We find it hard to recall that we only have rear view mirrors.
BTW my guess is that the polls will be misunderestimating Trump. My other guess is that I know Trump will win.
This is all bollocks. PB has determined that anyone who supports Trump is a crank and a lunatic. It can't be that close so someone has blundered.
Either that or PB is talking through its heart not its head.
Trump is going to win.
And to support him requires arguments so tortuous on subjects like sexual assault and truth telling and insurrection and being unwilling to accept defeat that 'crank and lunatic' could be regarded as convenient shorthand. And it is noteworthy how few of his supporters are prepared to make the difficult argument his case requires.
But Trump is going to win.
At this point I think Trump wins, depite the polling. The polls find it hard to detect low info voters and they are nearly all Trump voters.
Also he has a much better approval rating than the last two runs, and Harris is doing worse than both Biden and Clinton at this point. He will win PA, AZ and perhaps MI and GA atleast.
Pollsters make adjustments between elections, because they don't like being wrong. If they failed to pick up on a type of voter last time, they will adjust their weightings of them in future.
That said, the weightings are never perfect. The pollsters will underweight some group this time around, it's just that we won't know for sure which groups are underweighted until after the election. It could be, for example, that young women are underweighted this time, because of Roe v Wade. Or it might be that it is rural voters who come out in much greater numbers.
If you bet - whether in the UK or in the US - on pollasters simply being wrong in the same direction as the last election, then you will lose a lot of money.
As in this country, the problem is pollsters trying (and failing) to correct sampling errors with massive weighting.
Well, this is where I think online panels help. Because 99% of the time, as every YouGov panel member knows, they aren't asking about politics: they're asking about dish soap.
I therefore think they will tend to find people for whom $5 for 15 minutes work online is good money.
In which case I suspect they are over estimating the likelihood of a Trump victory.
But as I've pointed out before I've concluded that I haven't a clue how this market is going to play out so I'm keeping well away from it for betting purposes.
Completely O/T, as it happens I have two grandchildren due to be born next month, to two different mothers, and nothing at all is known about the gender of either.
It occurs to me that on the information (or lack of it) I have, and doing the maths, there is at this moment a 75% chance that at least one of them will be a boy and a 75% chance that at least one of them will be a girl. Which feels slightly counter intuitive. Am I right?
Completely O/T, as it happens I have two grandchildren due to be born next month, to two different mothers, and nothing at all is known about the gender of either.
It occurs to me that on the information (or lack of it) I have, and doing the maths, there is at this moment a 75% chance that at least one of them will be a boy and a 75% chance that at least one of them will be a girl. Which feels slightly counter intuitive. Am I right?
Yes, that's right. In circumstances like these it's often easier to assess the probability of something NOT happening. i.e. the chances of neither being a boy = the chances of 2 girls = 25% - therefore the chance of at least one being a boy = 75%. And vice versa, of course. You have a 50% chance of having one of each.
Pedantically, this is probably not exactly true. I think boys are slightly more common than girls (I may have this the wrong way around). And there may be genetics you have passed on to your offspring which makes one outcome or the other more likely.
But near as dammit, both outcomes you raise are 75%
Completely O/T, as it happens I have two grandchildren due to be born next month, to two different mothers, and nothing at all is known about the gender of either.
It occurs to me that on the information (or lack of it) I have, and doing the maths, there is at this moment a 75% chance that at least one of them will be a boy and a 75% chance that at least one of them will be a girl. Which feels slightly counter intuitive. Am I right?
I think so. A similar conundrum was my first interview question at Fen Poly:
"There are two children. At least one of them is a boy. What's the chance that both are?"
This is all bollocks. PB has determined that anyone who supports Trump is a crank and a lunatic. It can't be that close so someone has blundered.
Either that or PB is talking through its heart not its head.
We saw similar with Brexit. At the Uni all my colleagues expressed surprise at the result - no-one they knew voted for Brexit. They failed to see the self-selected bubble that they lived in.
Trump is the same. Almost all on PB see him as an extremely dangerous threat to democracy and potentially the free world. No-one can understand the mentality of someone in the US would is a supporter.
More or less true but two qualifications. With Brexit, lots of London professional types would say at first that everyone they knew was for Remain, but when examining carefully they knew perfectly well that the secretaries, cleaners, tea ladies, footmen, window cleaners and taxi drivers included a lot of Leavers. But actually (and this was truly significant to the result and why it happened) they didn't think they really counted.
With Trump, he is dangerous and deranged. It is not at all difficult to see why people vote for him, and also that the same people are not all that good at giving a rational account of why.
My rule of thumb is that, given the past polling has tended to underestimate Trump's vote rather than overestimate Clinton / Biden's, any state where Harris is polling
Betting on pollsters to not to change their models is a losing strategy: I would point you to Nate Silver, who currently rates Trump as slight favourite, for the best evidence of this.
That is a very fair point but, in 2020 we have adjustments that were supposed to rectify for 2016's errors and they didn't. The question is not so much will the models be changed - they will - but whether the changes are the right ones.
They did. And in fact, they were actually worse in 2020 than in 2016, overstating Biden's lead - on average - by 3.6%. If there is a similar overstatement this time, then it will be President Trump again.
On the other hand, if the polling error is the other way around, then it will be a comfortable Biden victory.
Just assuming that the error will be the same way for a third time in a row is - I think - naive. It might be. It might not be. But pollsters do strive to be accurate, and there have been some very significant changes. For example, in 2016 the vast majority of polls from big name pollsters were phone polls. In 2020, it was 50/50 between phone polls and online. And this time around, online panels are much more common.
Now, I don't know what difference this makes in the US context. But I do remember that in the Brexit referendum in the UK, the phone pollsters predicted a Remain win, while the online panels predicted a Brexit one. And it was the online panels which were right.
Nate Cohn suggested last month that many pollsters were using recalled voting patterns - including the NYT / Siena polls - which overestimated the numbers voting Biden in 2020:
HIs conclusion seems to be that there is a very real chance Trump will outperform the polling.
A dangerous thing to assume but, from a 'gut feel' perspective, this feels in the ball park. A Trump voter who believes in the "surveillance state" and the "corrupt media" may feel they are at risk from stating their opinion even to an anonymised survey. I am struggling to see why a Kamala Harris voter would have the same concerns.
In any event, I am inclined to think with @SouthamObserver on this one, namely that, looking at the issues that voters care about most - the economy and immigration - point to a Trump victory.
Mr Goldspring said there was evidence Edwards' father behaved 'monstrously' within his family. The chief magistrate said Edwards went to Cardiff university rather than Oxford or Cambridge. This contributed to him being perceived as an 'outsider' at the BBC.
Perhaps being an enormous pervert is a greater cross to bear than graduating from University College Cardiff. Nonetheless such a defeat would be an understandable disappointment for a Welsh Methodist father, I feel Huw's pain, but such a calamitous youth didn't turn all of us into raging bastards.
Completely O/T, as it happens I have two grandchildren due to be born next month, to two different mothers, and nothing at all is known about the gender of either.
It occurs to me that on the information (or lack of it) I have, and doing the maths, there is at this moment a 75% chance that at least one of them will be a boy and a 75% chance that at least one of them will be a girl. Which feels slightly counter intuitive. Am I right?
I think so. A similar conundrum was my first interview question at Fen Poly:
"There are two children. At least one of them is a boy. What's the chance that both are?"
There are three possible outcomes:
Boy A, Girl B Girl A, Boy B Boy A, Boy B
So one-third?
(I'm probably wrong so please feel free to point and laugh)
(I recall reading, years ago, of a minister in the UK concluding that the surplus of boys was part of the divine plan -- since you needed extra men to make up for the losses in wars. Middle 1800s, if I recall correctly.)
Welcome to the UK. Write something offensive on Facebook in your own home and you get 15 months in jail. Make hundreds of indecent images of children and you don't go to jail. 2:32 pm · 16 Sep 2024"
Welcome to the UK. Write something offensive on Facebook in your own home and you get 15 months in jail. Make hundreds of indecent images of children and you don't go to jail. 2:32 pm · 16 Sep 2024"
Completely O/T, as it happens I have two grandchildren due to be born next month, to two different mothers, and nothing at all is known about the gender of either.
It occurs to me that on the information (or lack of it) I have, and doing the maths, there is at this moment a 75% chance that at least one of them will be a boy and a 75% chance that at least one of them will be a girl. Which feels slightly counter intuitive. Am I right?
I think so. A similar conundrum was my first interview question at Fen Poly:
"There are two children. At least one of them is a boy. What's the chance that both are?"
There are three possible outcomes:
Boy A, Girl B Girl A, Boy B Boy A, Boy B
So one-third?
(I'm probably wrong so please feel free to point and laugh)
I think so.
Though I think the answer in my case was two thirds, so perhaps I don't remember to form of the question as clearly as I thought! Maybe it was
"There are two children. One of them is a boy. What's the chance the other one is?"
Welcome to the UK. Write something offensive on Facebook in your own home and you get 15 months in jail. Make hundreds of indecent images of children and you don't go to jail. 2:32 pm · 16 Sep 2024"
Interesting who this kind of reputational damage sticks to and who it doesnt. Both Tony and Cherie were well renowned 'grabbers'. Neither coming from proper money, solicited and gladly chomped through whatever they could, but it didnt hurt Tony in office. Starmer doesnt seem to have any kind of honeymoon protection at all.
During Blair's time the economic situation was generally favourable and they were able spray money around so people didn't care very much about the Blairs "grabbing"
Lord and Lady Starmer swanning around in the finest clothes someone else's money can buy while pensioners are going to freeze this winter is a rather harder "sell"
Pensioners have been mollycoddled for far too long.
We’re all in this together.
We had a PM in Boris Johnson that dressed like a scruff, it’s good for the UK for a PM to wear the best.
Can anyone looking really tell the difference between someone whose clothes cost £150 and someone whose clothes cost £1500? If they can, that says rather more about the observer than the observed.
I can, but then I have a keen eye for this.
See the second half of my comment above
When I was young, putting a lot of effort (and certainly a lot of time and/or expense) into your appearance was a bit frowned upon. You were expected, if possible, to achieve a certain level of cleanliness and/or personal hygiene, but anything more than that was a bit suspect - a bit 'look at me'. Actually, I say 'when I was young', I suspect most of men of my generation still think that way.
Maybe that is true, but it's hardly something to be proud of, is it?
I kind of think it is. We used to consider vanity a vice rather than a virtue. We used to consider showing off something to be dissuaded. We used to mock peacockery. A certain parsimoniousness whn it comes to one's appearance seems to me to be something to be applauded. By which I don't necessarily mean turning up in a t-shirt riven with holes and ketchup stains. But I rather disdain the mindset which thinks it acceptable to spend £1000 a year or more on one's own appearance. It seems frivolous. Do you remember the book of sports lists? I remember a list in it of sportsmen who cared rather too much for their own appearance - it included, I think, Peter Shilton, who would drive to a city 30 miles away for his particular needs for a haircut, and, possibly, Kevin Keegan, who spent rather more than the then-quite-daring £5 a month on a haircut. And someone who spent a lot on clothes, no doubt. But the fact that ten such people could be picked out showed how comparatively rare that sort of vanity was in those days. If you made a list now of sportsmen who cared too much for their own appearance you'd be here until doomsday.
Do you apply these hairshirt morals to women too, or just men?
I can tell that you don't agree, Anabobz, but I'm guessing you're about my age? Do you not think values on this have shifted somewhat in our lifetimes? It's not a massive issue. I mean, of all the vices that there are, vanity/frivolousness/attention seeking is rather low on the list. But still - it strikes me as an odd change, and odd that it's so uncommented on. It's a reasonable question whether it applies in my mind to both men and women - not least because the instinctive reaction to someone who, for example, spends £30 or more on a haircut is that doing so is a bit unmanly. But on reflection, yes, I'd say I do apply these 'hairshirt morals' to women as well, or at least something similar. There is no need to spend thousands on clothes, and drawing attention to doing so, just looks a bit like conspicuous consumption.
There's a quite low upper ceiling to how good anyone - male or female - can look, and expense and effort which goes beyond that is not only wasted but also looks a bit, well, crass.
As I say above - these aren't strongly held feelings. But I feel kind of sure this is how everyone used to feel, and I don't understand how and why the dial has shifted.
See also - tattoos.
How much did your current shirt cost? I'm guessing around a month's income for around 650m people.
Everything is relative. So what if people pay a lot for this or that? If they can afford it it doesn't make it extravagant or vain.
Yebbut, 40 years ago it would have done. I'm not so much defending my own position as expressing bafflement that values of this have shifted so much in my lifetime without real comment.
And in answer to your rhetorical question, about £25.
I'm not necessarily against spending money. I've previously lamented my decision not to by a painting, which is clearly a frivolous purchase. Though if I spend money on clothing, I have to get a LOT of wear out of the item to justify it to myself. (And I don't think I've ever spent over £70 on a non-footwear clothing item; and the most I have ever spent on footwear was on a standard pair of Dr. Marten boots, which exemplify the sort of sartorial utilitarianism I favour.)
I just instinctively disapprove slightly of excess effort with one's own appearance, and of men who dress to draw attention to themselves. This is just the values of the world I grew up in. It was so ingrained it was hardly worthy of comment. And now it isn't. Do you not find this interesting?
The world you grew up in. As opposed to the world hundreds of years ago where dandyism and foppishness were celebrated.
Indeed - interesting. If only we had some 250 year olds on the board, they could tell us when this changed. My guess: WW1. It may actually be that the late 70s/80s/early 90s were the nadir for male sartorial exuberance. I remember my friend's father - who was of a slightly older generation than my own - recollecting his youth of the early 60s, when the key to attracting girls was dressing to the nines and young men would happily wear expensively tailored suits for a night out. Whereas when I was young: yes, secretly, you wanted to look good to advance your chances of meeting girls. But you very much didn't want to look like you were trying to look good.
Every era has had its code whether it was mods and rockers or burberry raincoats or stone island or adidas spezials. And most people have wanted to appear as more affluent than they are (eg the burberry and gucci keyring crazes). Ofc it is generally the gentry that cut about in moth-eaten sweaters and ancient clothes held together by baler twine.
Interesting who this kind of reputational damage sticks to and who it doesnt. Both Tony and Cherie were well renowned 'grabbers'. Neither coming from proper money, solicited and gladly chomped through whatever they could, but it didnt hurt Tony in office. Starmer doesnt seem to have any kind of honeymoon protection at all.
During Blair's time the economic situation was generally favourable and they were able spray money around so people didn't care very much about the Blairs "grabbing"
Lord and Lady Starmer swanning around in the finest clothes someone else's money can buy while pensioners are going to freeze this winter is a rather harder "sell"
Pensioners have been mollycoddled for far too long.
We’re all in this together.
We had a PM in Boris Johnson that dressed like a scruff, it’s good for the UK for a PM to wear the best.
Can anyone looking really tell the difference between someone whose clothes cost £150 and someone whose clothes cost £1500? If they can, that says rather more about the observer than the observed.
I can, but then I have a keen eye for this.
See the second half of my comment above
When I was young, putting a lot of effort (and certainly a lot of time and/or expense) into your appearance was a bit frowned upon. You were expected, if possible, to achieve a certain level of cleanliness and/or personal hygiene, but anything more than that was a bit suspect - a bit 'look at me'. Actually, I say 'when I was young', I suspect most of men of my generation still think that way.
Maybe that is true, but it's hardly something to be proud of, is it?
I kind of think it is. We used to consider vanity a vice rather than a virtue. We used to consider showing off something to be dissuaded. We used to mock peacockery. A certain parsimoniousness whn it comes to one's appearance seems to me to be something to be applauded. By which I don't necessarily mean turning up in a t-shirt riven with holes and ketchup stains. But I rather disdain the mindset which thinks it acceptable to spend £1000 a year or more on one's own appearance. It seems frivolous. Do you remember the book of sports lists? I remember a list in it of sportsmen who cared rather too much for their own appearance - it included, I think, Peter Shilton, who would drive to a city 30 miles away for his particular needs for a haircut, and, possibly, Kevin Keegan, who spent rather more than the then-quite-daring £5 a month on a haircut. And someone who spent a lot on clothes, no doubt. But the fact that ten such people could be picked out showed how comparatively rare that sort of vanity was in those days. If you made a list now of sportsmen who cared too much for their own appearance you'd be here until doomsday.
Do you apply these hairshirt morals to women too, or just men?
I can tell that you don't agree, Anabobz, but I'm guessing you're about my age? Do you not think values on this have shifted somewhat in our lifetimes? It's not a massive issue. I mean, of all the vices that there are, vanity/frivolousness/attention seeking is rather low on the list. But still - it strikes me as an odd change, and odd that it's so uncommented on. It's a reasonable question whether it applies in my mind to both men and women - not least because the instinctive reaction to someone who, for example, spends £30 or more on a haircut is that doing so is a bit unmanly. But on reflection, yes, I'd say I do apply these 'hairshirt morals' to women as well, or at least something similar. There is no need to spend thousands on clothes, and drawing attention to doing so, just looks a bit like conspicuous consumption.
There's a quite low upper ceiling to how good anyone - male or female - can look, and expense and effort which goes beyond that is not only wasted but also looks a bit, well, crass.
As I say above - these aren't strongly held feelings. But I feel kind of sure this is how everyone used to feel, and I don't understand how and why the dial has shifted.
See also - tattoos.
How much did your current shirt cost? I'm guessing around a month's income for around 650m people.
Everything is relative. So what if people pay a lot for this or that? If they can afford it it doesn't make it extravagant or vain.
Yebbut, 40 years ago it would have done. I'm not so much defending my own position as expressing bafflement that values of this have shifted so much in my lifetime without real comment.
And in answer to your rhetorical question, about £25.
I'm not necessarily against spending money. I've previously lamented my decision not to by a painting, which is clearly a frivolous purchase. Though if I spend money on clothing, I have to get a LOT of wear out of the item to justify it to myself. (And I don't think I've ever spent over £70 on a non-footwear clothing item; and the most I have ever spent on footwear was on a standard pair of Dr. Marten boots, which exemplify the sort of sartorial utilitarianism I favour.)
I just instinctively disapprove slightly of excess effort with one's own appearance, and of men who dress to draw attention to themselves. This is just the values of the world I grew up in. It was so ingrained it was hardly worthy of comment. And now it isn't. Do you not find this interesting?
The world you grew up in. As opposed to the world hundreds of years ago where dandyism and foppishness were celebrated.
Indeed - interesting. If only we had some 250 year olds on the board, they could tell us when this changed. My guess: WW1. It may actually be that the late 70s/80s/early 90s were the nadir for male sartorial exuberance. I remember my friend's father - who was of a slightly older generation than my own - recollecting his youth of the early 60s, when the key to attracting girls was dressing to the nines and young men would happily wear expensively tailored suits for a night out. Whereas when I was young: yes, secretly, you wanted to look good to advance your chances of meeting girls. But you very much didn't want to look like you were trying to look good.
Every era has had its code whether it was mods and rockers or burberry raincoats or stone island or adidas spezials. And most people have wanted to appear as more affluent than they are (eg the burberry and gucci keyring crazes). Ofc it is generally the gentry that cut about in moth-eaten sweaters and ancient clothes held together by baler twine.
But no, that's the point. The male youth of the 70s/80s/90s did not dress to look more affluent than they were. Baggy shirts and doc martens. Or heavy metal chic. Or punk. Or Mark E Smith out of the Fall. Or shell suits. The new romantics of the early 80s were a sort of exception to this, but even they didn't look affluent - they looked like they'd indiscriminately raided a charity shop to try to stage a pantomime.
OTOH ... I remember visiting an old university friend c 2000 and meeting her daughter who was a student. Looked like one of those Australian parakeets - mixed primary colours and simple combinations thereof eg green. Dressed from charity shops, sure, but she took care over the overall effect and the appearance. Indiscriminate she wasn't.
Cookie clearly didn't know the right sort of New Romantics.
No, new romantics had come and gone by the time I got there! In my early teens I was largely surrounded by people who dressed in the heavy metal style - clearly there is some sort of uniform/look there, but smartness and expense and indeed cleanliness isn't really part of it. Then later on I was surrounded by Madchester baggy - again, driven by cheapness - and later by generic indie: plaid shirts and jeans or perhaps combats and doc martens. The 'other' tribe were the townies, who dressed largely in track suits. Expense and style were not apparent there either.
But in all honesty expensive clothing would be wasted on me. I look vaguely scruffy in anything I wear. I am fat and hairy. Looking at pictures of a younger me, very occasionally I looked brilliant in a way in which I never really appreciated and makes me sigh wistfully, but more often I just look in need of a haircut. I was always in need of a haircut, any time outside of six days since I had last had a haircut. I wish I'd discovered self-maintenance of hair earlier - I may have sacrificed the occasional youthfully brilliant hair day fresh out of the barbers, but I'd have had reliably neat hair, and that would have made the difference to the overall look.
I've never been in the least bit tempted by expensive clothes, with one exception: last year, as we had parked there for a walk, we popped in to the wonderful House of Bruar in northern Perthshire: everything the Highland laird needs - and I was instantly struck by a lament that I would never have need or occasion to wear a full high quality tweed suit. It passed, of course - it would also have needed me to be 20 years younger and with an entirely different lifestyle - i.e. heir to some Highland estate. How there is a big enough market for this sort of stuff for this business to stay operational I have no idea.
Many good things in life are fat and hairy. I'll get cracking on a list.
Interesting who this kind of reputational damage sticks to and who it doesnt. Both Tony and Cherie were well renowned 'grabbers'. Neither coming from proper money, solicited and gladly chomped through whatever they could, but it didnt hurt Tony in office. Starmer doesnt seem to have any kind of honeymoon protection at all.
During Blair's time the economic situation was generally favourable and they were able spray money around so people didn't care very much about the Blairs "grabbing"
Lord and Lady Starmer swanning around in the finest clothes someone else's money can buy while pensioners are going to freeze this winter is a rather harder "sell"
Pensioners have been mollycoddled for far too long.
We’re all in this together.
We had a PM in Boris Johnson that dressed like a scruff, it’s good for the UK for a PM to wear the best.
Can anyone looking really tell the difference between someone whose clothes cost £150 and someone whose clothes cost £1500? If they can, that says rather more about the observer than the observed.
I can, but then I have a keen eye for this.
See the second half of my comment above
When I was young, putting a lot of effort (and certainly a lot of time and/or expense) into your appearance was a bit frowned upon. You were expected, if possible, to achieve a certain level of cleanliness and/or personal hygiene, but anything more than that was a bit suspect - a bit 'look at me'. Actually, I say 'when I was young', I suspect most of men of my generation still think that way.
Maybe that is true, but it's hardly something to be proud of, is it?
I kind of think it is. We used to consider vanity a vice rather than a virtue. We used to consider showing off something to be dissuaded. We used to mock peacockery. A certain parsimoniousness whn it comes to one's appearance seems to me to be something to be applauded. By which I don't necessarily mean turning up in a t-shirt riven with holes and ketchup stains. But I rather disdain the mindset which thinks it acceptable to spend £1000 a year or more on one's own appearance. It seems frivolous. Do you remember the book of sports lists? I remember a list in it of sportsmen who cared rather too much for their own appearance - it included, I think, Peter Shilton, who would drive to a city 30 miles away for his particular needs for a haircut, and, possibly, Kevin Keegan, who spent rather more than the then-quite-daring £5 a month on a haircut. And someone who spent a lot on clothes, no doubt. But the fact that ten such people could be picked out showed how comparatively rare that sort of vanity was in those days. If you made a list now of sportsmen who cared too much for their own appearance you'd be here until doomsday.
Do you apply these hairshirt morals to women too, or just men?
I can tell that you don't agree, Anabobz, but I'm guessing you're about my age? Do you not think values on this have shifted somewhat in our lifetimes? It's not a massive issue. I mean, of all the vices that there are, vanity/frivolousness/attention seeking is rather low on the list. But still - it strikes me as an odd change, and odd that it's so uncommented on. It's a reasonable question whether it applies in my mind to both men and women - not least because the instinctive reaction to someone who, for example, spends £30 or more on a haircut is that doing so is a bit unmanly. But on reflection, yes, I'd say I do apply these 'hairshirt morals' to women as well, or at least something similar. There is no need to spend thousands on clothes, and drawing attention to doing so, just looks a bit like conspicuous consumption.
There's a quite low upper ceiling to how good anyone - male or female - can look, and expense and effort which goes beyond that is not only wasted but also looks a bit, well, crass.
As I say above - these aren't strongly held feelings. But I feel kind of sure this is how everyone used to feel, and I don't understand how and why the dial has shifted.
See also - tattoos.
How much did your current shirt cost? I'm guessing around a month's income for around 650m people.
Everything is relative. So what if people pay a lot for this or that? If they can afford it it doesn't make it extravagant or vain.
Yebbut, 40 years ago it would have done. I'm not so much defending my own position as expressing bafflement that values of this have shifted so much in my lifetime without real comment.
And in answer to your rhetorical question, about £25.
I'm not necessarily against spending money. I've previously lamented my decision not to by a painting, which is clearly a frivolous purchase. Though if I spend money on clothing, I have to get a LOT of wear out of the item to justify it to myself. (And I don't think I've ever spent over £70 on a non-footwear clothing item; and the most I have ever spent on footwear was on a standard pair of Dr. Marten boots, which exemplify the sort of sartorial utilitarianism I favour.)
I just instinctively disapprove slightly of excess effort with one's own appearance, and of men who dress to draw attention to themselves. This is just the values of the world I grew up in. It was so ingrained it was hardly worthy of comment. And now it isn't. Do you not find this interesting?
The world you grew up in. As opposed to the world hundreds of years ago where dandyism and foppishness were celebrated.
Indeed - interesting. If only we had some 250 year olds on the board, they could tell us when this changed. My guess: WW1. It may actually be that the late 70s/80s/early 90s were the nadir for male sartorial exuberance. I remember my friend's father - who was of a slightly older generation than my own - recollecting his youth of the early 60s, when the key to attracting girls was dressing to the nines and young men would happily wear expensively tailored suits for a night out. Whereas when I was young: yes, secretly, you wanted to look good to advance your chances of meeting girls. But you very much didn't want to look like you were trying to look good.
Every era has had its code whether it was mods and rockers or burberry raincoats or stone island or adidas spezials. And most people have wanted to appear as more affluent than they are (eg the burberry and gucci keyring crazes). Ofc it is generally the gentry that cut about in moth-eaten sweaters and ancient clothes held together by baler twine.
Interesting who this kind of reputational damage sticks to and who it doesnt. Both Tony and Cherie were well renowned 'grabbers'. Neither coming from proper money, solicited and gladly chomped through whatever they could, but it didnt hurt Tony in office. Starmer doesnt seem to have any kind of honeymoon protection at all.
During Blair's time the economic situation was generally favourable and they were able spray money around so people didn't care very much about the Blairs "grabbing"
Lord and Lady Starmer swanning around in the finest clothes someone else's money can buy while pensioners are going to freeze this winter is a rather harder "sell"
Pensioners have been mollycoddled for far too long.
We’re all in this together.
We had a PM in Boris Johnson that dressed like a scruff, it’s good for the UK for a PM to wear the best.
Can anyone looking really tell the difference between someone whose clothes cost £150 and someone whose clothes cost £1500? If they can, that says rather more about the observer than the observed.
I can, but then I have a keen eye for this.
See the second half of my comment above
When I was young, putting a lot of effort (and certainly a lot of time and/or expense) into your appearance was a bit frowned upon. You were expected, if possible, to achieve a certain level of cleanliness and/or personal hygiene, but anything more than that was a bit suspect - a bit 'look at me'. Actually, I say 'when I was young', I suspect most of men of my generation still think that way.
Maybe that is true, but it's hardly something to be proud of, is it?
I kind of think it is. We used to consider vanity a vice rather than a virtue. We used to consider showing off something to be dissuaded. We used to mock peacockery. A certain parsimoniousness whn it comes to one's appearance seems to me to be something to be applauded. By which I don't necessarily mean turning up in a t-shirt riven with holes and ketchup stains. But I rather disdain the mindset which thinks it acceptable to spend £1000 a year or more on one's own appearance. It seems frivolous. Do you remember the book of sports lists? I remember a list in it of sportsmen who cared rather too much for their own appearance - it included, I think, Peter Shilton, who would drive to a city 30 miles away for his particular needs for a haircut, and, possibly, Kevin Keegan, who spent rather more than the then-quite-daring £5 a month on a haircut. And someone who spent a lot on clothes, no doubt. But the fact that ten such people could be picked out showed how comparatively rare that sort of vanity was in those days. If you made a list now of sportsmen who cared too much for their own appearance you'd be here until doomsday.
Do you apply these hairshirt morals to women too, or just men?
I can tell that you don't agree, Anabobz, but I'm guessing you're about my age? Do you not think values on this have shifted somewhat in our lifetimes? It's not a massive issue. I mean, of all the vices that there are, vanity/frivolousness/attention seeking is rather low on the list. But still - it strikes me as an odd change, and odd that it's so uncommented on. It's a reasonable question whether it applies in my mind to both men and women - not least because the instinctive reaction to someone who, for example, spends £30 or more on a haircut is that doing so is a bit unmanly. But on reflection, yes, I'd say I do apply these 'hairshirt morals' to women as well, or at least something similar. There is no need to spend thousands on clothes, and drawing attention to doing so, just looks a bit like conspicuous consumption.
There's a quite low upper ceiling to how good anyone - male or female - can look, and expense and effort which goes beyond that is not only wasted but also looks a bit, well, crass.
As I say above - these aren't strongly held feelings. But I feel kind of sure this is how everyone used to feel, and I don't understand how and why the dial has shifted.
See also - tattoos.
How much did your current shirt cost? I'm guessing around a month's income for around 650m people.
Everything is relative. So what if people pay a lot for this or that? If they can afford it it doesn't make it extravagant or vain.
Yebbut, 40 years ago it would have done. I'm not so much defending my own position as expressing bafflement that values of this have shifted so much in my lifetime without real comment.
And in answer to your rhetorical question, about £25.
I'm not necessarily against spending money. I've previously lamented my decision not to by a painting, which is clearly a frivolous purchase. Though if I spend money on clothing, I have to get a LOT of wear out of the item to justify it to myself. (And I don't think I've ever spent over £70 on a non-footwear clothing item; and the most I have ever spent on footwear was on a standard pair of Dr. Marten boots, which exemplify the sort of sartorial utilitarianism I favour.)
I just instinctively disapprove slightly of excess effort with one's own appearance, and of men who dress to draw attention to themselves. This is just the values of the world I grew up in. It was so ingrained it was hardly worthy of comment. And now it isn't. Do you not find this interesting?
The world you grew up in. As opposed to the world hundreds of years ago where dandyism and foppishness were celebrated.
Indeed - interesting. If only we had some 250 year olds on the board, they could tell us when this changed. My guess: WW1. It may actually be that the late 70s/80s/early 90s were the nadir for male sartorial exuberance. I remember my friend's father - who was of a slightly older generation than my own - recollecting his youth of the early 60s, when the key to attracting girls was dressing to the nines and young men would happily wear expensively tailored suits for a night out. Whereas when I was young: yes, secretly, you wanted to look good to advance your chances of meeting girls. But you very much didn't want to look like you were trying to look good.
Every era has had its code whether it was mods and rockers or burberry raincoats or stone island or adidas spezials. And most people have wanted to appear as more affluent than they are (eg the burberry and gucci keyring crazes). Ofc it is generally the gentry that cut about in moth-eaten sweaters and ancient clothes held together by baler twine.
But no, that's the point. The male youth of the 70s/80s/90s did not dress to look more affluent than they were. Baggy shirts and doc martens. Or heavy metal chic. Or punk. Or Mark E Smith out of the Fall. Or shell suits. The new romantics of the early 80s were a sort of exception to this, but even they didn't look affluent - they looked like they'd indiscriminately raided a charity shop to try to stage a pantomime.
OTOH ... I remember visiting an old university friend c 2000 and meeting her daughter who was a student. Looked like one of those Australian parakeets - mixed primary colours and simple combinations thereof eg green. Dressed from charity shops, sure, but she took care over the overall effect and the appearance. Indiscriminate she wasn't.
Cookie clearly didn't know the right sort of New Romantics.
No, new romantics had come and gone by the time I got there! In my early teens I was largely surrounded by people who dressed in the heavy metal style - clearly there is some sort of uniform/look there, but smartness and expense and indeed cleanliness isn't really part of it. Then later on I was surrounded by Madchester baggy - again, driven by cheapness - and later by generic indie: plaid shirts and jeans or perhaps combats and doc martens. The 'other' tribe were the townies, who dressed largely in track suits. Expense and style were not apparent there either.
But in all honesty expensive clothing would be wasted on me. I look vaguely scruffy in anything I wear. I am fat and hairy. Looking at pictures of a younger me, very occasionally I looked brilliant in a way in which I never really appreciated and makes me sigh wistfully, but more often I just look in need of a haircut. I was always in need of a haircut, any time outside of six days since I had last had a haircut. I wish I'd discovered self-maintenance of hair earlier - I may have sacrificed the occasional youthfully brilliant hair day fresh out of the barbers, but I'd have had reliably neat hair, and that would have made the difference to the overall look.
I've never been in the least bit tempted by expensive clothes, with one exception: last year, as we had parked there for a walk, we popped in to the wonderful House of Bruar in northern Perthshire: everything the Highland laird needs - and I was instantly struck by a lament that I would never have need or occasion to wear a full high quality tweed suit. It passed, of course - it would also have needed me to be 20 years younger and with an entirely different lifestyle - i.e. heir to some Highland estate. How there is a big enough market for this sort of stuff for this business to stay operational I have no idea.
Many good things in life are fat and hairy. I'll get cracking on a list.
Keeping my head out of the gutter, pork scratchings spring to mind.
(I recall reading, years ago, of a minister in the UK concluding that the surplus of boys was part of the divine plan -- since you needed extra men to make up for the losses in wars. Middle 1800s, if I recall correctly.)
That might be less disingenuous than it sounds. Presumably the reason evolution has settled on this particular split is that over the thousands of years of human existence more men have died early in life than women, so the societies where the gene for 2.1 F:M did better than those which were 2.0 or 1.9 or anything else.
And the reason more men died early in life included, perhaps, different roles in inter-group conflict situations.
Completely O/T, as it happens I have two grandchildren due to be born next month, to two different mothers, and nothing at all is known about the gender of either.
It occurs to me that on the information (or lack of it) I have, and doing the maths, there is at this moment a 75% chance that at least one of them will be a boy and a 75% chance that at least one of them will be a girl. Which feels slightly counter intuitive. Am I right?
I think so. A similar conundrum was my first interview question at Fen Poly:
"There are two children. At least one of them is a boy. What's the chance that both are?"
There are three possible outcomes:
Boy A, Girl B Girl A, Boy B Boy A, Boy B
So one-third?
(I'm probably wrong so please feel free to point and laugh)
I think so.
Though I think the answer in my case was two thirds, so perhaps I don't remember to form of the question as clearly as I thought! Maybe it was
"There are two children. One of them is a boy. What's the chance the other one is?"
50% - because it's independent to the first child - although as with a coin toss* it's probably a 51%** chance.
* one of the ignoble awards last week showed that a coin has a 51% of landing the same way as it was flipped.
Completely O/T, as it happens I have two grandchildren due to be born next month, to two different mothers, and nothing at all is known about the gender of either.
It occurs to me that on the information (or lack of it) I have, and doing the maths, there is at this moment a 75% chance that at least one of them will be a boy and a 75% chance that at least one of them will be a girl. Which feels slightly counter intuitive. Am I right?
I think so. A similar conundrum was my first interview question at Fen Poly:
"There are two children. At least one of them is a boy. What's the chance that both are?"
There are three possible outcomes:
Boy A, Girl B Girl A, Boy B Boy A, Boy B
So one-third?
(I'm probably wrong so please feel free to point and laugh)
I think so.
Though I think the answer in my case was two thirds, so perhaps I don't remember to form of the question as clearly as I thought! Maybe it was
"There are two children. One of them is a boy. What's the chance the other one is?"
50% - because it's independent to the first child - although as with a coin toss* it's probably a 51%** chance.
* one of the ignoble awards last week showed that a coin has a 51% of landing the same way as it was flipped.
** 105 males are born for every 100 girls.
No, because I didn't tell you which one was male. All I did was eliminate "both are girls" as a possibility.
(I recall reading, years ago, of a minister in the UK concluding that the surplus of boys was part of the divine plan -- since you needed extra men to make up for the losses in wars. Middle 1800s, if I recall correctly.)
That might be less disingenuous than it sounds. Presumably the reason evolution has settled on this particular split is that over the thousands of years of human existence more men have died early in life than women, so the societies where the gene for 2.1 F:M did better than those which were 2.0 or 1.9 or anything else.
And the reason more men died early in life included, perhaps, different roles in inter-group conflict situations.
I seem to recall being told that when doing A level Zoology in about 1956. Although death in childbirth or as a result of childbearing must even things out a bit.
(I recall reading, years ago, of a minister in the UK concluding that the surplus of boys was part of the divine plan -- since you needed extra men to make up for the losses in wars. Middle 1800s, if I recall correctly.)
That might be less disingenuous than it sounds. Presumably the reason evolution has settled on this particular split is that over the thousands of years of human existence more men have died early in life than women, so the societies where the gene for 2.1 F:M did better than those which were 2.0 or 1.9 or anything else.
And the reason more men died early in life included, perhaps, different roles in inter-group conflict situations.
I seem to recall being told that when doing A level Zoology in about 1956. Although death in childbirth or as a result of childbearing must even things out a bit.
The generally quoted figure is that 1-in-10 births in times medieval resulted in the death of the mother. With an infant mortality rate of around 50% the implied loss of life in childbirth to maintain a stable population would have been immense.
This is all bollocks. PB has determined that anyone who supports Trump is a crank and a lunatic. It can't be that close so someone has blundered.
Either that or PB is talking through its heart not its head.
We saw similar with Brexit. At the Uni all my colleagues expressed surprise at the result - no-one they knew voted for Brexit. They failed to see the self-selected bubble that they lived in.
Trump is the same. Almost all on PB see him as an extremely dangerous threat to democracy and potentially the free world. No-one can understand the mentality of someone in the US would is a supporter.
More or less true but two qualifications. With Brexit, lots of London professional types would say at first that everyone they knew was for Remain, but when examining carefully they knew perfectly well that the secretaries, cleaners, tea ladies, footmen, window cleaners and taxi drivers included a lot of Leavers. But actually (and this was truly significant to the result and why it happened) they didn't think they really counted.
With Trump, he is dangerous and deranged. It is not at all difficult to see why people vote for him, and also that the same people are not all that good at giving a rational account of why.
My rule of thumb is that, given the past polling has tended to underestimate Trump's vote rather than overestimate Clinton / Biden's, any state where Harris is polling
Betting on pollsters to not to change their models is a losing strategy: I would point you to Nate Silver, who currently rates Trump as slight favourite, for the best evidence of this.
That is a very fair point but, in 2020 we have adjustments that were supposed to rectify for 2016's errors and they didn't. The question is not so much will the models be changed - they will - but whether the changes are the right ones.
They did. And in fact, they were actually worse in 2020 than in 2016, overstating Biden's lead - on average - by 3.6%. If there is a similar overstatement this time, then it will be President Trump again.
On the other hand, if the polling error is the other way around, then it will be a comfortable Biden victory.
Just assuming that the error will be the same way for a third time in a row is - I think - naive. It might be. It might not be. But pollsters do strive to be accurate, and there have been some very significant changes. For example, in 2016 the vast majority of polls from big name pollsters were phone polls. In 2020, it was 50/50 between phone polls and online. And this time around, online panels are much more common.
Now, I don't know what difference this makes in the US context. But I do remember that in the Brexit referendum in the UK, the phone pollsters predicted a Remain win, while the online panels predicted a Brexit one. And it was the online panels which were right.
Nate Cohn suggested last month that many pollsters were using recalled voting patterns - including the NYT / Siena polls - which overestimated the numbers voting Biden in 2020:
HIs conclusion seems to be that there is a very real chance Trump will outperform the polling.
A dangerous thing to assume but, from a 'gut feel' perspective, this feels in the ball park. A Trump voter who believes in the "surveillance state" and the "corrupt media" may feel they are at risk from stating their opinion even to an anonymised survey. I am struggling to see why a Kamala Harris voter would have the same concerns.
In any event, I am inclined to think with @SouthamObserver on this one, namely that, looking at the issues that voters care about most - the economy and immigration - point to a Trump victory.
Oh, I agree.
I even wrote a header about how - across the developed world - people feel poorer as wages have not kept up with inflation, and are therefore kicking out incumbents. At that time, I made it clear that Trump should be the favourite for that reason.
But elections are not solely won on the economy. If they were, then the Conservatives would have had an incredible electoral victory in 1997 rather than a shellecking.
Trump has been a very poor candidate this time around, much less strong than in 2020 or 2016. He's clearly less mentally strong, and he's not filling stadiums like he once did. Polling evidence shows fewer Republicans are excited about voting for him than Democrats for Harris. And abortion remains a millstone around his neck. Pro-Life voters aren't thankful to him for handing it to the States, while Pro-Choice voters want it reversed.
I think it remains a very close election; now that may change between now and polling day - and that could happen in either direction - but as for now, it's on a knife edge. I would make Harris the very narrow favourite, but my policy is simply to sell either candidate if they get to 55% probability on Betfair, and that's worked out very well so far.
(I recall reading, years ago, of a minister in the UK concluding that the surplus of boys was part of the divine plan -- since you needed extra men to make up for the losses in wars. Middle 1800s, if I recall correctly.)
That might be less disingenuous than it sounds. Presumably the reason evolution has settled on this particular split is that over the thousands of years of human existence more men have died early in life than women, so the societies where the gene for 2.1 F:M did better than those which were 2.0 or 1.9 or anything else.
And the reason more men died early in life included, perhaps, different roles in inter-group conflict situations.
I seem to recall being told that when doing A level Zoology in about 1956. Although death in childbirth or as a result of childbearing must even things out a bit.
The generally quoted figure is that 1-in-10 births in times medieval resulted in the death of the mother. With an infant mortality rate of around 50% the implied loss of life in childbirth to maintain a stable population would have been immense.
We didn’t go into any more detail as I recall, but I don’t think the matter was on the syllabus. Mind, the guy who taught us was quite capable of going off topic if the whim took him.
Interesting who this kind of reputational damage sticks to and who it doesnt. Both Tony and Cherie were well renowned 'grabbers'. Neither coming from proper money, solicited and gladly chomped through whatever they could, but it didnt hurt Tony in office. Starmer doesnt seem to have any kind of honeymoon protection at all.
During Blair's time the economic situation was generally favourable and they were able spray money around so people didn't care very much about the Blairs "grabbing"
Lord and Lady Starmer swanning around in the finest clothes someone else's money can buy while pensioners are going to freeze this winter is a rather harder "sell"
Pensioners have been mollycoddled for far too long.
We’re all in this together.
We had a PM in Boris Johnson that dressed like a scruff, it’s good for the UK for a PM to wear the best.
Can anyone looking really tell the difference between someone whose clothes cost £150 and someone whose clothes cost £1500? If they can, that says rather more about the observer than the observed.
I can, but then I have a keen eye for this.
See the second half of my comment above
When I was young, putting a lot of effort (and certainly a lot of time and/or expense) into your appearance was a bit frowned upon. You were expected, if possible, to achieve a certain level of cleanliness and/or personal hygiene, but anything more than that was a bit suspect - a bit 'look at me'. Actually, I say 'when I was young', I suspect most of men of my generation still think that way.
Maybe that is true, but it's hardly something to be proud of, is it?
I kind of think it is. We used to consider vanity a vice rather than a virtue. We used to consider showing off something to be dissuaded. We used to mock peacockery. A certain parsimoniousness whn it comes to one's appearance seems to me to be something to be applauded. By which I don't necessarily mean turning up in a t-shirt riven with holes and ketchup stains. But I rather disdain the mindset which thinks it acceptable to spend £1000 a year or more on one's own appearance. It seems frivolous. Do you remember the book of sports lists? I remember a list in it of sportsmen who cared rather too much for their own appearance - it included, I think, Peter Shilton, who would drive to a city 30 miles away for his particular needs for a haircut, and, possibly, Kevin Keegan, who spent rather more than the then-quite-daring £5 a month on a haircut. And someone who spent a lot on clothes, no doubt. But the fact that ten such people could be picked out showed how comparatively rare that sort of vanity was in those days. If you made a list now of sportsmen who cared too much for their own appearance you'd be here until doomsday.
Do you apply these hairshirt morals to women too, or just men?
I can tell that you don't agree, Anabobz, but I'm guessing you're about my age? Do you not think values on this have shifted somewhat in our lifetimes? It's not a massive issue. I mean, of all the vices that there are, vanity/frivolousness/attention seeking is rather low on the list. But still - it strikes me as an odd change, and odd that it's so uncommented on. It's a reasonable question whether it applies in my mind to both men and women - not least because the instinctive reaction to someone who, for example, spends £30 or more on a haircut is that doing so is a bit unmanly. But on reflection, yes, I'd say I do apply these 'hairshirt morals' to women as well, or at least something similar. There is no need to spend thousands on clothes, and drawing attention to doing so, just looks a bit like conspicuous consumption.
There's a quite low upper ceiling to how good anyone - male or female - can look, and expense and effort which goes beyond that is not only wasted but also looks a bit, well, crass.
As I say above - these aren't strongly held feelings. But I feel kind of sure this is how everyone used to feel, and I don't understand how and why the dial has shifted.
See also - tattoos.
How much did your current shirt cost? I'm guessing around a month's income for around 650m people.
Everything is relative. So what if people pay a lot for this or that? If they can afford it it doesn't make it extravagant or vain.
Yebbut, 40 years ago it would have done. I'm not so much defending my own position as expressing bafflement that values of this have shifted so much in my lifetime without real comment.
And in answer to your rhetorical question, about £25.
I'm not necessarily against spending money. I've previously lamented my decision not to by a painting, which is clearly a frivolous purchase. Though if I spend money on clothing, I have to get a LOT of wear out of the item to justify it to myself. (And I don't think I've ever spent over £70 on a non-footwear clothing item; and the most I have ever spent on footwear was on a standard pair of Dr. Marten boots, which exemplify the sort of sartorial utilitarianism I favour.)
I just instinctively disapprove slightly of excess effort with one's own appearance, and of men who dress to draw attention to themselves. This is just the values of the world I grew up in. It was so ingrained it was hardly worthy of comment. And now it isn't. Do you not find this interesting?
The world you grew up in. As opposed to the world hundreds of years ago where dandyism and foppishness were celebrated.
Indeed - interesting. If only we had some 250 year olds on the board, they could tell us when this changed. My guess: WW1. It may actually be that the late 70s/80s/early 90s were the nadir for male sartorial exuberance. I remember my friend's father - who was of a slightly older generation than my own - recollecting his youth of the early 60s, when the key to attracting girls was dressing to the nines and young men would happily wear expensively tailored suits for a night out. Whereas when I was young: yes, secretly, you wanted to look good to advance your chances of meeting girls. But you very much didn't want to look like you were trying to look good.
Every era has had its code whether it was mods and rockers or burberry raincoats or stone island or adidas spezials. And most people have wanted to appear as more affluent than they are (eg the burberry and gucci keyring crazes). Ofc it is generally the gentry that cut about in moth-eaten sweaters and ancient clothes held together by baler twine.
Interesting who this kind of reputational damage sticks to and who it doesnt. Both Tony and Cherie were well renowned 'grabbers'. Neither coming from proper money, solicited and gladly chomped through whatever they could, but it didnt hurt Tony in office. Starmer doesnt seem to have any kind of honeymoon protection at all.
During Blair's time the economic situation was generally favourable and they were able spray money around so people didn't care very much about the Blairs "grabbing"
Lord and Lady Starmer swanning around in the finest clothes someone else's money can buy while pensioners are going to freeze this winter is a rather harder "sell"
Pensioners have been mollycoddled for far too long.
We’re all in this together.
We had a PM in Boris Johnson that dressed like a scruff, it’s good for the UK for a PM to wear the best.
Can anyone looking really tell the difference between someone whose clothes cost £150 and someone whose clothes cost £1500? If they can, that says rather more about the observer than the observed.
I can, but then I have a keen eye for this.
See the second half of my comment above
When I was young, putting a lot of effort (and certainly a lot of time and/or expense) into your appearance was a bit frowned upon. You were expected, if possible, to achieve a certain level of cleanliness and/or personal hygiene, but anything more than that was a bit suspect - a bit 'look at me'. Actually, I say 'when I was young', I suspect most of men of my generation still think that way.
Maybe that is true, but it's hardly something to be proud of, is it?
I kind of think it is. We used to consider vanity a vice rather than a virtue. We used to consider showing off something to be dissuaded. We used to mock peacockery. A certain parsimoniousness whn it comes to one's appearance seems to me to be something to be applauded. By which I don't necessarily mean turning up in a t-shirt riven with holes and ketchup stains. But I rather disdain the mindset which thinks it acceptable to spend £1000 a year or more on one's own appearance. It seems frivolous. Do you remember the book of sports lists? I remember a list in it of sportsmen who cared rather too much for their own appearance - it included, I think, Peter Shilton, who would drive to a city 30 miles away for his particular needs for a haircut, and, possibly, Kevin Keegan, who spent rather more than the then-quite-daring £5 a month on a haircut. And someone who spent a lot on clothes, no doubt. But the fact that ten such people could be picked out showed how comparatively rare that sort of vanity was in those days. If you made a list now of sportsmen who cared too much for their own appearance you'd be here until doomsday.
Do you apply these hairshirt morals to women too, or just men?
I can tell that you don't agree, Anabobz, but I'm guessing you're about my age? Do you not think values on this have shifted somewhat in our lifetimes? It's not a massive issue. I mean, of all the vices that there are, vanity/frivolousness/attention seeking is rather low on the list. But still - it strikes me as an odd change, and odd that it's so uncommented on. It's a reasonable question whether it applies in my mind to both men and women - not least because the instinctive reaction to someone who, for example, spends £30 or more on a haircut is that doing so is a bit unmanly. But on reflection, yes, I'd say I do apply these 'hairshirt morals' to women as well, or at least something similar. There is no need to spend thousands on clothes, and drawing attention to doing so, just looks a bit like conspicuous consumption.
There's a quite low upper ceiling to how good anyone - male or female - can look, and expense and effort which goes beyond that is not only wasted but also looks a bit, well, crass.
As I say above - these aren't strongly held feelings. But I feel kind of sure this is how everyone used to feel, and I don't understand how and why the dial has shifted.
See also - tattoos.
How much did your current shirt cost? I'm guessing around a month's income for around 650m people.
Everything is relative. So what if people pay a lot for this or that? If they can afford it it doesn't make it extravagant or vain.
Yebbut, 40 years ago it would have done. I'm not so much defending my own position as expressing bafflement that values of this have shifted so much in my lifetime without real comment.
And in answer to your rhetorical question, about £25.
I'm not necessarily against spending money. I've previously lamented my decision not to by a painting, which is clearly a frivolous purchase. Though if I spend money on clothing, I have to get a LOT of wear out of the item to justify it to myself. (And I don't think I've ever spent over £70 on a non-footwear clothing item; and the most I have ever spent on footwear was on a standard pair of Dr. Marten boots, which exemplify the sort of sartorial utilitarianism I favour.)
I just instinctively disapprove slightly of excess effort with one's own appearance, and of men who dress to draw attention to themselves. This is just the values of the world I grew up in. It was so ingrained it was hardly worthy of comment. And now it isn't. Do you not find this interesting?
The world you grew up in. As opposed to the world hundreds of years ago where dandyism and foppishness were celebrated.
Indeed - interesting. If only we had some 250 year olds on the board, they could tell us when this changed. My guess: WW1. It may actually be that the late 70s/80s/early 90s were the nadir for male sartorial exuberance. I remember my friend's father - who was of a slightly older generation than my own - recollecting his youth of the early 60s, when the key to attracting girls was dressing to the nines and young men would happily wear expensively tailored suits for a night out. Whereas when I was young: yes, secretly, you wanted to look good to advance your chances of meeting girls. But you very much didn't want to look like you were trying to look good.
Every era has had its code whether it was mods and rockers or burberry raincoats or stone island or adidas spezials. And most people have wanted to appear as more affluent than they are (eg the burberry and gucci keyring crazes). Ofc it is generally the gentry that cut about in moth-eaten sweaters and ancient clothes held together by baler twine.
But no, that's the point. The male youth of the 70s/80s/90s did not dress to look more affluent than they were. Baggy shirts and doc martens. Or heavy metal chic. Or punk. Or Mark E Smith out of the Fall. Or shell suits. The new romantics of the early 80s were a sort of exception to this, but even they didn't look affluent - they looked like they'd indiscriminately raided a charity shop to try to stage a pantomime.
OTOH ... I remember visiting an old university friend c 2000 and meeting her daughter who was a student. Looked like one of those Australian parakeets - mixed primary colours and simple combinations thereof eg green. Dressed from charity shops, sure, but she took care over the overall effect and the appearance. Indiscriminate she wasn't.
Cookie clearly didn't know the right sort of New Romantics.
No, new romantics had come and gone by the time I got there! In my early teens I was largely surrounded by people who dressed in the heavy metal style - clearly there is some sort of uniform/look there, but smartness and expense and indeed cleanliness isn't really part of it. Then later on I was surrounded by Madchester baggy - again, driven by cheapness - and later by generic indie: plaid shirts and jeans or perhaps combats and doc martens. The 'other' tribe were the townies, who dressed largely in track suits. Expense and style were not apparent there either.
But in all honesty expensive clothing would be wasted on me. I look vaguely scruffy in anything I wear. I am fat and hairy. Looking at pictures of a younger me, very occasionally I looked brilliant in a way in which I never really appreciated and makes me sigh wistfully, but more often I just look in need of a haircut. I was always in need of a haircut, any time outside of six days since I had last had a haircut. I wish I'd discovered self-maintenance of hair earlier - I may have sacrificed the occasional youthfully brilliant hair day fresh out of the barbers, but I'd have had reliably neat hair, and that would have made the difference to the overall look.
I've never been in the least bit tempted by expensive clothes, with one exception: last year, as we had parked there for a walk, we popped in to the wonderful House of Bruar in northern Perthshire: everything the Highland laird needs - and I was instantly struck by a lament that I would never have need or occasion to wear a full high quality tweed suit. It passed, of course - it would also have needed me to be 20 years younger and with an entirely different lifestyle - i.e. heir to some Highland estate. How there is a big enough market for this sort of stuff for this business to stay operational I have no idea.
House of Bruar is for folk who want to look like an heir to a Highland estate without even a tiny chance of being one, that’s how they stay very comfortably operational. Well done for resisting the temptation.
(I recall reading, years ago, of a minister in the UK concluding that the surplus of boys was part of the divine plan -- since you needed extra men to make up for the losses in wars. Middle 1800s, if I recall correctly.)
That might be less disingenuous than it sounds. Presumably the reason evolution has settled on this particular split is that over the thousands of years of human existence more men have died early in life than women, so the societies where the gene for 2.1 F:M did better than those which were 2.0 or 1.9 or anything else.
And the reason more men died early in life included, perhaps, different roles in inter-group conflict situations.
The first bit might be right, but the second is really difficult to show. There are so many possible explanations.
For example, we see in lots of species that the female is the gatekeeper, and the sex that is exercising sexual selection. So the surplus of males might be optimal because it increases the amount of competition, and therefore the speed at which advantageous traits spread through a population.
So, with that explanation, it might be the case that you'd want a surplus of males even if females were slightly less likely to reach reproductive age, because the optimal imbalance at reproductive age might be 1.25:1 M:F.
We can't necessarily assume that evolution is aiming for a 1:1 ratio at reproductive age.
If you look solely at demographics (i.e. graduates and the young vote Democrat, non-graduates and the old vote Republicans), then Nevada and Arizona should be going ever more Blue (with smaller shifts in that direction in North Carolina and Georgia), while Wisconsin and Michigan (and to a lesser extent Minnesota and Pennsylvania) should be going ever more Red.
Or, to put it another way, Arizona and Nevada are becoming more New Mexico. While much of the rustbelt is turning more Ohio.
It's an interesting flipping of the electoral calculus, that benefits Trump in 2024. Longer term, of course, those trends could put Texas into play.
Interesting who this kind of reputational damage sticks to and who it doesnt. Both Tony and Cherie were well renowned 'grabbers'. Neither coming from proper money, solicited and gladly chomped through whatever they could, but it didnt hurt Tony in office. Starmer doesnt seem to have any kind of honeymoon protection at all.
During Blair's time the economic situation was generally favourable and they were able spray money around so people didn't care very much about the Blairs "grabbing"
Lord and Lady Starmer swanning around in the finest clothes someone else's money can buy while pensioners are going to freeze this winter is a rather harder "sell"
Pensioners have been mollycoddled for far too long.
We’re all in this together.
We had a PM in Boris Johnson that dressed like a scruff, it’s good for the UK for a PM to wear the best.
Can anyone looking really tell the difference between someone whose clothes cost £150 and someone whose clothes cost £1500? If they can, that says rather more about the observer than the observed.
I can, but then I have a keen eye for this.
See the second half of my comment above
When I was young, putting a lot of effort (and certainly a lot of time and/or expense) into your appearance was a bit frowned upon. You were expected, if possible, to achieve a certain level of cleanliness and/or personal hygiene, but anything more than that was a bit suspect - a bit 'look at me'. Actually, I say 'when I was young', I suspect most of men of my generation still think that way.
Maybe that is true, but it's hardly something to be proud of, is it?
I kind of think it is. We used to consider vanity a vice rather than a virtue. We used to consider showing off something to be dissuaded. We used to mock peacockery. A certain parsimoniousness whn it comes to one's appearance seems to me to be something to be applauded. By which I don't necessarily mean turning up in a t-shirt riven with holes and ketchup stains. But I rather disdain the mindset which thinks it acceptable to spend £1000 a year or more on one's own appearance. It seems frivolous. Do you remember the book of sports lists? I remember a list in it of sportsmen who cared rather too much for their own appearance - it included, I think, Peter Shilton, who would drive to a city 30 miles away for his particular needs for a haircut, and, possibly, Kevin Keegan, who spent rather more than the then-quite-daring £5 a month on a haircut. And someone who spent a lot on clothes, no doubt. But the fact that ten such people could be picked out showed how comparatively rare that sort of vanity was in those days. If you made a list now of sportsmen who cared too much for their own appearance you'd be here until doomsday.
Do you apply these hairshirt morals to women too, or just men?
I can tell that you don't agree, Anabobz, but I'm guessing you're about my age? Do you not think values on this have shifted somewhat in our lifetimes? It's not a massive issue. I mean, of all the vices that there are, vanity/frivolousness/attention seeking is rather low on the list. But still - it strikes me as an odd change, and odd that it's so uncommented on. It's a reasonable question whether it applies in my mind to both men and women - not least because the instinctive reaction to someone who, for example, spends £30 or more on a haircut is that doing so is a bit unmanly. But on reflection, yes, I'd say I do apply these 'hairshirt morals' to women as well, or at least something similar. There is no need to spend thousands on clothes, and drawing attention to doing so, just looks a bit like conspicuous consumption.
There's a quite low upper ceiling to how good anyone - male or female - can look, and expense and effort which goes beyond that is not only wasted but also looks a bit, well, crass.
As I say above - these aren't strongly held feelings. But I feel kind of sure this is how everyone used to feel, and I don't understand how and why the dial has shifted.
See also - tattoos.
How much did your current shirt cost? I'm guessing around a month's income for around 650m people.
Everything is relative. So what if people pay a lot for this or that? If they can afford it it doesn't make it extravagant or vain.
Yebbut, 40 years ago it would have done. I'm not so much defending my own position as expressing bafflement that values of this have shifted so much in my lifetime without real comment.
And in answer to your rhetorical question, about £25.
I'm not necessarily against spending money. I've previously lamented my decision not to by a painting, which is clearly a frivolous purchase. Though if I spend money on clothing, I have to get a LOT of wear out of the item to justify it to myself. (And I don't think I've ever spent over £70 on a non-footwear clothing item; and the most I have ever spent on footwear was on a standard pair of Dr. Marten boots, which exemplify the sort of sartorial utilitarianism I favour.)
I just instinctively disapprove slightly of excess effort with one's own appearance, and of men who dress to draw attention to themselves. This is just the values of the world I grew up in. It was so ingrained it was hardly worthy of comment. And now it isn't. Do you not find this interesting?
The world you grew up in. As opposed to the world hundreds of years ago where dandyism and foppishness were celebrated.
Indeed - interesting. If only we had some 250 year olds on the board, they could tell us when this changed. My guess: WW1. It may actually be that the late 70s/80s/early 90s were the nadir for male sartorial exuberance. I remember my friend's father - who was of a slightly older generation than my own - recollecting his youth of the early 60s, when the key to attracting girls was dressing to the nines and young men would happily wear expensively tailored suits for a night out. Whereas when I was young: yes, secretly, you wanted to look good to advance your chances of meeting girls. But you very much didn't want to look like you were trying to look good.
Every era has had its code whether it was mods and rockers or burberry raincoats or stone island or adidas spezials. And most people have wanted to appear as more affluent than they are (eg the burberry and gucci keyring crazes). Ofc it is generally the gentry that cut about in moth-eaten sweaters and ancient clothes held together by baler twine.
Interesting who this kind of reputational damage sticks to and who it doesnt. Both Tony and Cherie were well renowned 'grabbers'. Neither coming from proper money, solicited and gladly chomped through whatever they could, but it didnt hurt Tony in office. Starmer doesnt seem to have any kind of honeymoon protection at all.
During Blair's time the economic situation was generally favourable and they were able spray money around so people didn't care very much about the Blairs "grabbing"
Lord and Lady Starmer swanning around in the finest clothes someone else's money can buy while pensioners are going to freeze this winter is a rather harder "sell"
Pensioners have been mollycoddled for far too long.
We’re all in this together.
We had a PM in Boris Johnson that dressed like a scruff, it’s good for the UK for a PM to wear the best.
Can anyone looking really tell the difference between someone whose clothes cost £150 and someone whose clothes cost £1500? If they can, that says rather more about the observer than the observed.
I can, but then I have a keen eye for this.
See the second half of my comment above
When I was young, putting a lot of effort (and certainly a lot of time and/or expense) into your appearance was a bit frowned upon. You were expected, if possible, to achieve a certain level of cleanliness and/or personal hygiene, but anything more than that was a bit suspect - a bit 'look at me'. Actually, I say 'when I was young', I suspect most of men of my generation still think that way.
Maybe that is true, but it's hardly something to be proud of, is it?
I kind of think it is. We used to consider vanity a vice rather than a virtue. We used to consider showing off something to be dissuaded. We used to mock peacockery. A certain parsimoniousness whn it comes to one's appearance seems to me to be something to be applauded. By which I don't necessarily mean turning up in a t-shirt riven with holes and ketchup stains. But I rather disdain the mindset which thinks it acceptable to spend £1000 a year or more on one's own appearance. It seems frivolous. Do you remember the book of sports lists? I remember a list in it of sportsmen who cared rather too much for their own appearance - it included, I think, Peter Shilton, who would drive to a city 30 miles away for his particular needs for a haircut, and, possibly, Kevin Keegan, who spent rather more than the then-quite-daring £5 a month on a haircut. And someone who spent a lot on clothes, no doubt. But the fact that ten such people could be picked out showed how comparatively rare that sort of vanity was in those days. If you made a list now of sportsmen who cared too much for their own appearance you'd be here until doomsday.
Do you apply these hairshirt morals to women too, or just men?
I can tell that you don't agree, Anabobz, but I'm guessing you're about my age? Do you not think values on this have shifted somewhat in our lifetimes? It's not a massive issue. I mean, of all the vices that there are, vanity/frivolousness/attention seeking is rather low on the list. But still - it strikes me as an odd change, and odd that it's so uncommented on. It's a reasonable question whether it applies in my mind to both men and women - not least because the instinctive reaction to someone who, for example, spends £30 or more on a haircut is that doing so is a bit unmanly. But on reflection, yes, I'd say I do apply these 'hairshirt morals' to women as well, or at least something similar. There is no need to spend thousands on clothes, and drawing attention to doing so, just looks a bit like conspicuous consumption.
There's a quite low upper ceiling to how good anyone - male or female - can look, and expense and effort which goes beyond that is not only wasted but also looks a bit, well, crass.
As I say above - these aren't strongly held feelings. But I feel kind of sure this is how everyone used to feel, and I don't understand how and why the dial has shifted.
See also - tattoos.
How much did your current shirt cost? I'm guessing around a month's income for around 650m people.
Everything is relative. So what if people pay a lot for this or that? If they can afford it it doesn't make it extravagant or vain.
Yebbut, 40 years ago it would have done. I'm not so much defending my own position as expressing bafflement that values of this have shifted so much in my lifetime without real comment.
And in answer to your rhetorical question, about £25.
I'm not necessarily against spending money. I've previously lamented my decision not to by a painting, which is clearly a frivolous purchase. Though if I spend money on clothing, I have to get a LOT of wear out of the item to justify it to myself. (And I don't think I've ever spent over £70 on a non-footwear clothing item; and the most I have ever spent on footwear was on a standard pair of Dr. Marten boots, which exemplify the sort of sartorial utilitarianism I favour.)
I just instinctively disapprove slightly of excess effort with one's own appearance, and of men who dress to draw attention to themselves. This is just the values of the world I grew up in. It was so ingrained it was hardly worthy of comment. And now it isn't. Do you not find this interesting?
The world you grew up in. As opposed to the world hundreds of years ago where dandyism and foppishness were celebrated.
Indeed - interesting. If only we had some 250 year olds on the board, they could tell us when this changed. My guess: WW1. It may actually be that the late 70s/80s/early 90s were the nadir for male sartorial exuberance. I remember my friend's father - who was of a slightly older generation than my own - recollecting his youth of the early 60s, when the key to attracting girls was dressing to the nines and young men would happily wear expensively tailored suits for a night out. Whereas when I was young: yes, secretly, you wanted to look good to advance your chances of meeting girls. But you very much didn't want to look like you were trying to look good.
Every era has had its code whether it was mods and rockers or burberry raincoats or stone island or adidas spezials. And most people have wanted to appear as more affluent than they are (eg the burberry and gucci keyring crazes). Ofc it is generally the gentry that cut about in moth-eaten sweaters and ancient clothes held together by baler twine.
But no, that's the point. The male youth of the 70s/80s/90s did not dress to look more affluent than they were. Baggy shirts and doc martens. Or heavy metal chic. Or punk. Or Mark E Smith out of the Fall. Or shell suits. The new romantics of the early 80s were a sort of exception to this, but even they didn't look affluent - they looked like they'd indiscriminately raided a charity shop to try to stage a pantomime.
OTOH ... I remember visiting an old university friend c 2000 and meeting her daughter who was a student. Looked like one of those Australian parakeets - mixed primary colours and simple combinations thereof eg green. Dressed from charity shops, sure, but she took care over the overall effect and the appearance. Indiscriminate she wasn't.
Cookie clearly didn't know the right sort of New Romantics.
No, new romantics had come and gone by the time I got there! In my early teens I was largely surrounded by people who dressed in the heavy metal style - clearly there is some sort of uniform/look there, but smartness and expense and indeed cleanliness isn't really part of it. Then later on I was surrounded by Madchester baggy - again, driven by cheapness - and later by generic indie: plaid shirts and jeans or perhaps combats and doc martens. The 'other' tribe were the townies, who dressed largely in track suits. Expense and style were not apparent there either.
But in all honesty expensive clothing would be wasted on me. I look vaguely scruffy in anything I wear. I am fat and hairy. Looking at pictures of a younger me, very occasionally I looked brilliant in a way in which I never really appreciated and makes me sigh wistfully, but more often I just look in need of a haircut. I was always in need of a haircut, any time outside of six days since I had last had a haircut. I wish I'd discovered self-maintenance of hair earlier - I may have sacrificed the occasional youthfully brilliant hair day fresh out of the barbers, but I'd have had reliably neat hair, and that would have made the difference to the overall look.
I've never been in the least bit tempted by expensive clothes, with one exception: last year, as we had parked there for a walk, we popped in to the wonderful House of Bruar in northern Perthshire: everything the Highland laird needs - and I was instantly struck by a lament that I would never have need or occasion to wear a full high quality tweed suit. It passed, of course - it would also have needed me to be 20 years younger and with an entirely different lifestyle - i.e. heir to some Highland estate. How there is a big enough market for this sort of stuff for this business to stay operational I have no idea.
House of Bruar is for folk who want to look like an heir to a Highland estate without even a tiny chance of being one, that’s how they stay very comfortably operational. Well done for resisting the temptation.
I was agog that such a place existed. Still, it was very, very pleasant. The toilets were splendid, I wanted every food item, and they didn't seem to mind us parking for a walk up to see the waterfalls. In the end my wife and daughters each bought a Christmas decoration and I bought a tin of barley sugars.
Vance in to 180 from 300 a couple of days ago. I shall die laughing if I clean up on him after cleaning up on KH but I wonder what is behind it, beyond the possibility of a third assassin.
If he'd had a gun legally (he's charged with possessing a firearm as a felon and possessing a firearm with a defaced serial number), what could they have charged him with other than trespass ?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2024/sep/16/trump-shooting-attempt-suspect-detained-ryan-wesley-routh ..Potential would-be Trump assassin spent nearly 12 hours in tree line of golf club In the complaint, FBI special agent Mark A Thomas wrote that he learned from Ryan Wesley Routh’s mobile phone service provider that his device was around the tree line of Donald Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, for nearly 12 hours.
A phone registered to Routh, who is facing federal gun charges over yesterday’s incident that the FBI has said may have been an assassination attempt, “was located in the vicinity of the area along the tree line … 1.59am until approximate 1.31pm on September 15, 2024”...
This is all bollocks. PB has determined that anyone who supports Trump is a crank and a lunatic. It can't be that close so someone has blundered.
Either that or PB is talking through its heart not its head.
We saw similar with Brexit. At the Uni all my colleagues expressed surprise at the result - no-one they knew voted for Brexit. They failed to see the self-selected bubble that they lived in.
Trump is the same. Almost all on PB see him as an extremely dangerous threat to democracy and potentially the free world. No-one can understand the mentality of someone in the US would is a supporter.
A lot of people just repeat propaganda regarding Trump, and have a prejudiced view of his supporters. I am not a supporter but it isn't too hard to see why people support him. The position I am particularly sympathetic to is the one that says that he is the better of two really bad options, with the alternative representing the greater risk.
Interesting who this kind of reputational damage sticks to and who it doesnt. Both Tony and Cherie were well renowned 'grabbers'. Neither coming from proper money, solicited and gladly chomped through whatever they could, but it didnt hurt Tony in office. Starmer doesnt seem to have any kind of honeymoon protection at all.
During Blair's time the economic situation was generally favourable and they were able spray money around so people didn't care very much about the Blairs "grabbing"
Lord and Lady Starmer swanning around in the finest clothes someone else's money can buy while pensioners are going to freeze this winter is a rather harder "sell"
Pensioners have been mollycoddled for far too long.
We’re all in this together.
We had a PM in Boris Johnson that dressed like a scruff, it’s good for the UK for a PM to wear the best.
Can anyone looking really tell the difference between someone whose clothes cost £150 and someone whose clothes cost £1500? If they can, that says rather more about the observer than the observed.
I can, but then I have a keen eye for this.
See the second half of my comment above
When I was young, putting a lot of effort (and certainly a lot of time and/or expense) into your appearance was a bit frowned upon. You were expected, if possible, to achieve a certain level of cleanliness and/or personal hygiene, but anything more than that was a bit suspect - a bit 'look at me'. Actually, I say 'when I was young', I suspect most of men of my generation still think that way.
Maybe that is true, but it's hardly something to be proud of, is it?
I kind of think it is. We used to consider vanity a vice rather than a virtue. We used to consider showing off something to be dissuaded. We used to mock peacockery. A certain parsimoniousness whn it comes to one's appearance seems to me to be something to be applauded. By which I don't necessarily mean turning up in a t-shirt riven with holes and ketchup stains. But I rather disdain the mindset which thinks it acceptable to spend £1000 a year or more on one's own appearance. It seems frivolous. Do you remember the book of sports lists? I remember a list in it of sportsmen who cared rather too much for their own appearance - it included, I think, Peter Shilton, who would drive to a city 30 miles away for his particular needs for a haircut, and, possibly, Kevin Keegan, who spent rather more than the then-quite-daring £5 a month on a haircut. And someone who spent a lot on clothes, no doubt. But the fact that ten such people could be picked out showed how comparatively rare that sort of vanity was in those days. If you made a list now of sportsmen who cared too much for their own appearance you'd be here until doomsday.
Do you apply these hairshirt morals to women too, or just men?
I can tell that you don't agree, Anabobz, but I'm guessing you're about my age? Do you not think values on this have shifted somewhat in our lifetimes? It's not a massive issue. I mean, of all the vices that there are, vanity/frivolousness/attention seeking is rather low on the list. But still - it strikes me as an odd change, and odd that it's so uncommented on. It's a reasonable question whether it applies in my mind to both men and women - not least because the instinctive reaction to someone who, for example, spends £30 or more on a haircut is that doing so is a bit unmanly. But on reflection, yes, I'd say I do apply these 'hairshirt morals' to women as well, or at least something similar. There is no need to spend thousands on clothes, and drawing attention to doing so, just looks a bit like conspicuous consumption.
There's a quite low upper ceiling to how good anyone - male or female - can look, and expense and effort which goes beyond that is not only wasted but also looks a bit, well, crass.
As I say above - these aren't strongly held feelings. But I feel kind of sure this is how everyone used to feel, and I don't understand how and why the dial has shifted.
See also - tattoos.
How much did your current shirt cost? I'm guessing around a month's income for around 650m people.
Everything is relative. So what if people pay a lot for this or that? If they can afford it it doesn't make it extravagant or vain.
Yebbut, 40 years ago it would have done. I'm not so much defending my own position as expressing bafflement that values of this have shifted so much in my lifetime without real comment.
And in answer to your rhetorical question, about £25.
I'm not necessarily against spending money. I've previously lamented my decision not to by a painting, which is clearly a frivolous purchase. Though if I spend money on clothing, I have to get a LOT of wear out of the item to justify it to myself. (And I don't think I've ever spent over £70 on a non-footwear clothing item; and the most I have ever spent on footwear was on a standard pair of Dr. Marten boots, which exemplify the sort of sartorial utilitarianism I favour.)
I just instinctively disapprove slightly of excess effort with one's own appearance, and of men who dress to draw attention to themselves. This is just the values of the world I grew up in. It was so ingrained it was hardly worthy of comment. And now it isn't. Do you not find this interesting?
The world you grew up in. As opposed to the world hundreds of years ago where dandyism and foppishness were celebrated.
Indeed - interesting. If only we had some 250 year olds on the board, they could tell us when this changed. My guess: WW1. It may actually be that the late 70s/80s/early 90s were the nadir for male sartorial exuberance. I remember my friend's father - who was of a slightly older generation than my own - recollecting his youth of the early 60s, when the key to attracting girls was dressing to the nines and young men would happily wear expensively tailored suits for a night out. Whereas when I was young: yes, secretly, you wanted to look good to advance your chances of meeting girls. But you very much didn't want to look like you were trying to look good.
Every era has had its code whether it was mods and rockers or burberry raincoats or stone island or adidas spezials. And most people have wanted to appear as more affluent than they are (eg the burberry and gucci keyring crazes). Ofc it is generally the gentry that cut about in moth-eaten sweaters and ancient clothes held together by baler twine.
Interesting who this kind of reputational damage sticks to and who it doesnt. Both Tony and Cherie were well renowned 'grabbers'. Neither coming from proper money, solicited and gladly chomped through whatever they could, but it didnt hurt Tony in office. Starmer doesnt seem to have any kind of honeymoon protection at all.
During Blair's time the economic situation was generally favourable and they were able spray money around so people didn't care very much about the Blairs "grabbing"
Lord and Lady Starmer swanning around in the finest clothes someone else's money can buy while pensioners are going to freeze this winter is a rather harder "sell"
Pensioners have been mollycoddled for far too long.
We’re all in this together.
We had a PM in Boris Johnson that dressed like a scruff, it’s good for the UK for a PM to wear the best.
Can anyone looking really tell the difference between someone whose clothes cost £150 and someone whose clothes cost £1500? If they can, that says rather more about the observer than the observed.
I can, but then I have a keen eye for this.
See the second half of my comment above
When I was young, putting a lot of effort (and certainly a lot of time and/or expense) into your appearance was a bit frowned upon. You were expected, if possible, to achieve a certain level of cleanliness and/or personal hygiene, but anything more than that was a bit suspect - a bit 'look at me'. Actually, I say 'when I was young', I suspect most of men of my generation still think that way.
Maybe that is true, but it's hardly something to be proud of, is it?
I kind of think it is. We used to consider vanity a vice rather than a virtue. We used to consider showing off something to be dissuaded. We used to mock peacockery. A certain parsimoniousness whn it comes to one's appearance seems to me to be something to be applauded. By which I don't necessarily mean turning up in a t-shirt riven with holes and ketchup stains. But I rather disdain the mindset which thinks it acceptable to spend £1000 a year or more on one's own appearance. It seems frivolous. Do you remember the book of sports lists? I remember a list in it of sportsmen who cared rather too much for their own appearance - it included, I think, Peter Shilton, who would drive to a city 30 miles away for his particular needs for a haircut, and, possibly, Kevin Keegan, who spent rather more than the then-quite-daring £5 a month on a haircut. And someone who spent a lot on clothes, no doubt. But the fact that ten such people could be picked out showed how comparatively rare that sort of vanity was in those days. If you made a list now of sportsmen who cared too much for their own appearance you'd be here until doomsday.
Do you apply these hairshirt morals to women too, or just men?
I can tell that you don't agree, Anabobz, but I'm guessing you're about my age? Do you not think values on this have shifted somewhat in our lifetimes? It's not a massive issue. I mean, of all the vices that there are, vanity/frivolousness/attention seeking is rather low on the list. But still - it strikes me as an odd change, and odd that it's so uncommented on. It's a reasonable question whether it applies in my mind to both men and women - not least because the instinctive reaction to someone who, for example, spends £30 or more on a haircut is that doing so is a bit unmanly. But on reflection, yes, I'd say I do apply these 'hairshirt morals' to women as well, or at least something similar. There is no need to spend thousands on clothes, and drawing attention to doing so, just looks a bit like conspicuous consumption.
There's a quite low upper ceiling to how good anyone - male or female - can look, and expense and effort which goes beyond that is not only wasted but also looks a bit, well, crass.
As I say above - these aren't strongly held feelings. But I feel kind of sure this is how everyone used to feel, and I don't understand how and why the dial has shifted.
See also - tattoos.
How much did your current shirt cost? I'm guessing around a month's income for around 650m people.
Everything is relative. So what if people pay a lot for this or that? If they can afford it it doesn't make it extravagant or vain.
Yebbut, 40 years ago it would have done. I'm not so much defending my own position as expressing bafflement that values of this have shifted so much in my lifetime without real comment.
And in answer to your rhetorical question, about £25.
I'm not necessarily against spending money. I've previously lamented my decision not to by a painting, which is clearly a frivolous purchase. Though if I spend money on clothing, I have to get a LOT of wear out of the item to justify it to myself. (And I don't think I've ever spent over £70 on a non-footwear clothing item; and the most I have ever spent on footwear was on a standard pair of Dr. Marten boots, which exemplify the sort of sartorial utilitarianism I favour.)
I just instinctively disapprove slightly of excess effort with one's own appearance, and of men who dress to draw attention to themselves. This is just the values of the world I grew up in. It was so ingrained it was hardly worthy of comment. And now it isn't. Do you not find this interesting?
The world you grew up in. As opposed to the world hundreds of years ago where dandyism and foppishness were celebrated.
Indeed - interesting. If only we had some 250 year olds on the board, they could tell us when this changed. My guess: WW1. It may actually be that the late 70s/80s/early 90s were the nadir for male sartorial exuberance. I remember my friend's father - who was of a slightly older generation than my own - recollecting his youth of the early 60s, when the key to attracting girls was dressing to the nines and young men would happily wear expensively tailored suits for a night out. Whereas when I was young: yes, secretly, you wanted to look good to advance your chances of meeting girls. But you very much didn't want to look like you were trying to look good.
Every era has had its code whether it was mods and rockers or burberry raincoats or stone island or adidas spezials. And most people have wanted to appear as more affluent than they are (eg the burberry and gucci keyring crazes). Ofc it is generally the gentry that cut about in moth-eaten sweaters and ancient clothes held together by baler twine.
But no, that's the point. The male youth of the 70s/80s/90s did not dress to look more affluent than they were. Baggy shirts and doc martens. Or heavy metal chic. Or punk. Or Mark E Smith out of the Fall. Or shell suits. The new romantics of the early 80s were a sort of exception to this, but even they didn't look affluent - they looked like they'd indiscriminately raided a charity shop to try to stage a pantomime.
OTOH ... I remember visiting an old university friend c 2000 and meeting her daughter who was a student. Looked like one of those Australian parakeets - mixed primary colours and simple combinations thereof eg green. Dressed from charity shops, sure, but she took care over the overall effect and the appearance. Indiscriminate she wasn't.
Cookie clearly didn't know the right sort of New Romantics.
No, new romantics had come and gone by the time I got there! In my early teens I was largely surrounded by people who dressed in the heavy metal style - clearly there is some sort of uniform/look there, but smartness and expense and indeed cleanliness isn't really part of it. Then later on I was surrounded by Madchester baggy - again, driven by cheapness - and later by generic indie: plaid shirts and jeans or perhaps combats and doc martens. The 'other' tribe were the townies, who dressed largely in track suits. Expense and style were not apparent there either.
But in all honesty expensive clothing would be wasted on me. I look vaguely scruffy in anything I wear. I am fat and hairy. Looking at pictures of a younger me, very occasionally I looked brilliant in a way in which I never really appreciated and makes me sigh wistfully, but more often I just look in need of a haircut. I was always in need of a haircut, any time outside of six days since I had last had a haircut. I wish I'd discovered self-maintenance of hair earlier - I may have sacrificed the occasional youthfully brilliant hair day fresh out of the barbers, but I'd have had reliably neat hair, and that would have made the difference to the overall look.
I've never been in the least bit tempted by expensive clothes, with one exception: last year, as we had parked there for a walk, we popped in to the wonderful House of Bruar in northern Perthshire: everything the Highland laird needs - and I was instantly struck by a lament that I would never have need or occasion to wear a full high quality tweed suit. It passed, of course - it would also have needed me to be 20 years younger and with an entirely different lifestyle - i.e. heir to some Highland estate. How there is a big enough market for this sort of stuff for this business to stay operational I have no idea.
House of Bruar is for folk who want to look like an heir to a Highland estate without even a tiny chance of being one, that’s how they stay very comfortably operational. Well done for resisting the temptation.
I was agog that such a place existed. Still, it was very, very pleasant. The toilets were splendid, I wanted every food item, and they didn't seem to mind us parking for a walk up to see the waterfalls. In the end my wife and daughters each bought a Christmas decoration and I bought a tin of barley sugars.
Best toilets on the A9, used to drag 50 muddy mountaineers in there on the way home.
I'd buy a single pork pie in thanks for their robust, water absorbent hand towels.
Interesting who this kind of reputational damage sticks to and who it doesnt. Both Tony and Cherie were well renowned 'grabbers'. Neither coming from proper money, solicited and gladly chomped through whatever they could, but it didnt hurt Tony in office. Starmer doesnt seem to have any kind of honeymoon protection at all.
During Blair's time the economic situation was generally favourable and they were able spray money around so people didn't care very much about the Blairs "grabbing"
Lord and Lady Starmer swanning around in the finest clothes someone else's money can buy while pensioners are going to freeze this winter is a rather harder "sell"
Pensioners have been mollycoddled for far too long.
We’re all in this together.
We had a PM in Boris Johnson that dressed like a scruff, it’s good for the UK for a PM to wear the best.
Can anyone looking really tell the difference between someone whose clothes cost £150 and someone whose clothes cost £1500? If they can, that says rather more about the observer than the observed.
I can, but then I have a keen eye for this.
See the second half of my comment above
When I was young, putting a lot of effort (and certainly a lot of time and/or expense) into your appearance was a bit frowned upon. You were expected, if possible, to achieve a certain level of cleanliness and/or personal hygiene, but anything more than that was a bit suspect - a bit 'look at me'. Actually, I say 'when I was young', I suspect most of men of my generation still think that way.
Maybe that is true, but it's hardly something to be proud of, is it?
I kind of think it is. We used to consider vanity a vice rather than a virtue. We used to consider showing off something to be dissuaded. We used to mock peacockery. A certain parsimoniousness whn it comes to one's appearance seems to me to be something to be applauded. By which I don't necessarily mean turning up in a t-shirt riven with holes and ketchup stains. But I rather disdain the mindset which thinks it acceptable to spend £1000 a year or more on one's own appearance. It seems frivolous. Do you remember the book of sports lists? I remember a list in it of sportsmen who cared rather too much for their own appearance - it included, I think, Peter Shilton, who would drive to a city 30 miles away for his particular needs for a haircut, and, possibly, Kevin Keegan, who spent rather more than the then-quite-daring £5 a month on a haircut. And someone who spent a lot on clothes, no doubt. But the fact that ten such people could be picked out showed how comparatively rare that sort of vanity was in those days. If you made a list now of sportsmen who cared too much for their own appearance you'd be here until doomsday.
Do you apply these hairshirt morals to women too, or just men?
I can tell that you don't agree, Anabobz, but I'm guessing you're about my age? Do you not think values on this have shifted somewhat in our lifetimes? It's not a massive issue. I mean, of all the vices that there are, vanity/frivolousness/attention seeking is rather low on the list. But still - it strikes me as an odd change, and odd that it's so uncommented on. It's a reasonable question whether it applies in my mind to both men and women - not least because the instinctive reaction to someone who, for example, spends £30 or more on a haircut is that doing so is a bit unmanly. But on reflection, yes, I'd say I do apply these 'hairshirt morals' to women as well, or at least something similar. There is no need to spend thousands on clothes, and drawing attention to doing so, just looks a bit like conspicuous consumption.
There's a quite low upper ceiling to how good anyone - male or female - can look, and expense and effort which goes beyond that is not only wasted but also looks a bit, well, crass.
As I say above - these aren't strongly held feelings. But I feel kind of sure this is how everyone used to feel, and I don't understand how and why the dial has shifted.
See also - tattoos.
How much did your current shirt cost? I'm guessing around a month's income for around 650m people.
Everything is relative. So what if people pay a lot for this or that? If they can afford it it doesn't make it extravagant or vain.
Indeed it is. I remember on a local takeaway and restaurant facebook group getting some abusive comments because we went to the restaurant Solstice, in Newcastle, and paid around £500 for the pleasure. Well worth every penny.
However because people go to food banks and there is a cost of living crisis and some people can only afford a cheap meal at Spoons I am somehow a bad person for doing this.
Seriously, GTF.
Is that per head, please? JUst to clarify.
Interesting discussion, more generally, though there may be a social class/geographical difference. A Mod had a rather different approach - and that was in the 1950s - to looking smart, even more so than most. And 1968 depended on whether you were in Carnaby Street or Grainger Street, all other things being equal.
No, it was total.
There are some places that are close to that per head. I’d love to go to but can’t really afford it.
Interesting who this kind of reputational damage sticks to and who it doesnt. Both Tony and Cherie were well renowned 'grabbers'. Neither coming from proper money, solicited and gladly chomped through whatever they could, but it didnt hurt Tony in office. Starmer doesnt seem to have any kind of honeymoon protection at all.
During Blair's time the economic situation was generally favourable and they were able spray money around so people didn't care very much about the Blairs "grabbing"
Lord and Lady Starmer swanning around in the finest clothes someone else's money can buy while pensioners are going to freeze this winter is a rather harder "sell"
Pensioners have been mollycoddled for far too long.
We’re all in this together.
We had a PM in Boris Johnson that dressed like a scruff, it’s good for the UK for a PM to wear the best.
Can anyone looking really tell the difference between someone whose clothes cost £150 and someone whose clothes cost £1500? If they can, that says rather more about the observer than the observed.
I can, but then I have a keen eye for this.
See the second half of my comment above
When I was young, putting a lot of effort (and certainly a lot of time and/or expense) into your appearance was a bit frowned upon. You were expected, if possible, to achieve a certain level of cleanliness and/or personal hygiene, but anything more than that was a bit suspect - a bit 'look at me'. Actually, I say 'when I was young', I suspect most of men of my generation still think that way.
Maybe that is true, but it's hardly something to be proud of, is it?
I kind of think it is. We used to consider vanity a vice rather than a virtue. We used to consider showing off something to be dissuaded. We used to mock peacockery. A certain parsimoniousness whn it comes to one's appearance seems to me to be something to be applauded. By which I don't necessarily mean turning up in a t-shirt riven with holes and ketchup stains. But I rather disdain the mindset which thinks it acceptable to spend £1000 a year or more on one's own appearance. It seems frivolous. Do you remember the book of sports lists? I remember a list in it of sportsmen who cared rather too much for their own appearance - it included, I think, Peter Shilton, who would drive to a city 30 miles away for his particular needs for a haircut, and, possibly, Kevin Keegan, who spent rather more than the then-quite-daring £5 a month on a haircut. And someone who spent a lot on clothes, no doubt. But the fact that ten such people could be picked out showed how comparatively rare that sort of vanity was in those days. If you made a list now of sportsmen who cared too much for their own appearance you'd be here until doomsday.
Do you apply these hairshirt morals to women too, or just men?
I can tell that you don't agree, Anabobz, but I'm guessing you're about my age? Do you not think values on this have shifted somewhat in our lifetimes? It's not a massive issue. I mean, of all the vices that there are, vanity/frivolousness/attention seeking is rather low on the list. But still - it strikes me as an odd change, and odd that it's so uncommented on. It's a reasonable question whether it applies in my mind to both men and women - not least because the instinctive reaction to someone who, for example, spends £30 or more on a haircut is that doing so is a bit unmanly. But on reflection, yes, I'd say I do apply these 'hairshirt morals' to women as well, or at least something similar. There is no need to spend thousands on clothes, and drawing attention to doing so, just looks a bit like conspicuous consumption.
There's a quite low upper ceiling to how good anyone - male or female - can look, and expense and effort which goes beyond that is not only wasted but also looks a bit, well, crass.
As I say above - these aren't strongly held feelings. But I feel kind of sure this is how everyone used to feel, and I don't understand how and why the dial has shifted.
See also - tattoos.
How much did your current shirt cost? I'm guessing around a month's income for around 650m people.
Everything is relative. So what if people pay a lot for this or that? If they can afford it it doesn't make it extravagant or vain.
Indeed it is. I remember on a local takeaway and restaurant facebook group getting some abusive comments because we went to the restaurant Solstice, in Newcastle, and paid around £500 for the pleasure. Well worth every penny.
However because people go to food banks and there is a cost of living crisis and some people can only afford a cheap meal at Spoons I am somehow a bad person for doing this.
Seriously, GTF.
What people always miss is that some of the people in a fancy restaurant go to such a place once a year, and some once a week. A fifty times difference.
(I write this sipping a half pint of Broadside in 'spoons, which cost £1. But I have spent £300 a head on dinner two or three times in my life.)
Indeed. It was a one off treat. It was 18 months ago. We’ve not spent anything like that since. Most of our meals are 15 - 20 quid a head for a main.
Interesting who this kind of reputational damage sticks to and who it doesnt. Both Tony and Cherie were well renowned 'grabbers'. Neither coming from proper money, solicited and gladly chomped through whatever they could, but it didnt hurt Tony in office. Starmer doesnt seem to have any kind of honeymoon protection at all.
During Blair's time the economic situation was generally favourable and they were able spray money around so people didn't care very much about the Blairs "grabbing"
Lord and Lady Starmer swanning around in the finest clothes someone else's money can buy while pensioners are going to freeze this winter is a rather harder "sell"
Pensioners have been mollycoddled for far too long.
We’re all in this together.
We had a PM in Boris Johnson that dressed like a scruff, it’s good for the UK for a PM to wear the best.
Can anyone looking really tell the difference between someone whose clothes cost £150 and someone whose clothes cost £1500? If they can, that says rather more about the observer than the observed.
I can, but then I have a keen eye for this.
See the second half of my comment above
When I was young, putting a lot of effort (and certainly a lot of time and/or expense) into your appearance was a bit frowned upon. You were expected, if possible, to achieve a certain level of cleanliness and/or personal hygiene, but anything more than that was a bit suspect - a bit 'look at me'. Actually, I say 'when I was young', I suspect most of men of my generation still think that way.
Maybe that is true, but it's hardly something to be proud of, is it?
I kind of think it is. We used to consider vanity a vice rather than a virtue. We used to consider showing off something to be dissuaded. We used to mock peacockery. A certain parsimoniousness whn it comes to one's appearance seems to me to be something to be applauded. By which I don't necessarily mean turning up in a t-shirt riven with holes and ketchup stains. But I rather disdain the mindset which thinks it acceptable to spend £1000 a year or more on one's own appearance. It seems frivolous. Do you remember the book of sports lists? I remember a list in it of sportsmen who cared rather too much for their own appearance - it included, I think, Peter Shilton, who would drive to a city 30 miles away for his particular needs for a haircut, and, possibly, Kevin Keegan, who spent rather more than the then-quite-daring £5 a month on a haircut. And someone who spent a lot on clothes, no doubt. But the fact that ten such people could be picked out showed how comparatively rare that sort of vanity was in those days. If you made a list now of sportsmen who cared too much for their own appearance you'd be here until doomsday.
Do you apply these hairshirt morals to women too, or just men?
I can tell that you don't agree, Anabobz, but I'm guessing you're about my age? Do you not think values on this have shifted somewhat in our lifetimes? It's not a massive issue. I mean, of all the vices that there are, vanity/frivolousness/attention seeking is rather low on the list. But still - it strikes me as an odd change, and odd that it's so uncommented on. It's a reasonable question whether it applies in my mind to both men and women - not least because the instinctive reaction to someone who, for example, spends £30 or more on a haircut is that doing so is a bit unmanly. But on reflection, yes, I'd say I do apply these 'hairshirt morals' to women as well, or at least something similar. There is no need to spend thousands on clothes, and drawing attention to doing so, just looks a bit like conspicuous consumption.
There's a quite low upper ceiling to how good anyone - male or female - can look, and expense and effort which goes beyond that is not only wasted but also looks a bit, well, crass.
As I say above - these aren't strongly held feelings. But I feel kind of sure this is how everyone used to feel, and I don't understand how and why the dial has shifted.
See also - tattoos.
How much did your current shirt cost? I'm guessing around a month's income for around 650m people.
Everything is relative. So what if people pay a lot for this or that? If they can afford it it doesn't make it extravagant or vain.
Yebbut, 40 years ago it would have done. I'm not so much defending my own position as expressing bafflement that values of this have shifted so much in my lifetime without real comment.
And in answer to your rhetorical question, about £25.
I'm not necessarily against spending money. I've previously lamented my decision not to by a painting, which is clearly a frivolous purchase. Though if I spend money on clothing, I have to get a LOT of wear out of the item to justify it to myself. (And I don't think I've ever spent over £70 on a non-footwear clothing item; and the most I have ever spent on footwear was on a standard pair of Dr. Marten boots, which exemplify the sort of sartorial utilitarianism I favour.)
I just instinctively disapprove slightly of excess effort with one's own appearance, and of men who dress to draw attention to themselves. This is just the values of the world I grew up in. It was so ingrained it was hardly worthy of comment. And now it isn't. Do you not find this interesting?
The world you grew up in. As opposed to the world hundreds of years ago where dandyism and foppishness were celebrated.
Indeed - interesting. If only we had some 250 year olds on the board, they could tell us when this changed. My guess: WW1. It may actually be that the late 70s/80s/early 90s were the nadir for male sartorial exuberance. I remember my friend's father - who was of a slightly older generation than my own - recollecting his youth of the early 60s, when the key to attracting girls was dressing to the nines and young men would happily wear expensively tailored suits for a night out. Whereas when I was young: yes, secretly, you wanted to look good to advance your chances of meeting girls. But you very much didn't want to look like you were trying to look good.
Every era has had its code whether it was mods and rockers or burberry raincoats or stone island or adidas spezials. And most people have wanted to appear as more affluent than they are (eg the burberry and gucci keyring crazes). Ofc it is generally the gentry that cut about in moth-eaten sweaters and ancient clothes held together by baler twine.
Interesting who this kind of reputational damage sticks to and who it doesnt. Both Tony and Cherie were well renowned 'grabbers'. Neither coming from proper money, solicited and gladly chomped through whatever they could, but it didnt hurt Tony in office. Starmer doesnt seem to have any kind of honeymoon protection at all.
During Blair's time the economic situation was generally favourable and they were able spray money around so people didn't care very much about the Blairs "grabbing"
Lord and Lady Starmer swanning around in the finest clothes someone else's money can buy while pensioners are going to freeze this winter is a rather harder "sell"
Pensioners have been mollycoddled for far too long.
We’re all in this together.
We had a PM in Boris Johnson that dressed like a scruff, it’s good for the UK for a PM to wear the best.
Can anyone looking really tell the difference between someone whose clothes cost £150 and someone whose clothes cost £1500? If they can, that says rather more about the observer than the observed.
I can, but then I have a keen eye for this.
See the second half of my comment above
When I was young, putting a lot of effort (and certainly a lot of time and/or expense) into your appearance was a bit frowned upon. You were expected, if possible, to achieve a certain level of cleanliness and/or personal hygiene, but anything more than that was a bit suspect - a bit 'look at me'. Actually, I say 'when I was young', I suspect most of men of my generation still think that way.
Maybe that is true, but it's hardly something to be proud of, is it?
I kind of think it is. We used to consider vanity a vice rather than a virtue. We used to consider showing off something to be dissuaded. We used to mock peacockery. A certain parsimoniousness whn it comes to one's appearance seems to me to be something to be applauded. By which I don't necessarily mean turning up in a t-shirt riven with holes and ketchup stains. But I rather disdain the mindset which thinks it acceptable to spend £1000 a year or more on one's own appearance. It seems frivolous. Do you remember the book of sports lists? I remember a list in it of sportsmen who cared rather too much for their own appearance - it included, I think, Peter Shilton, who would drive to a city 30 miles away for his particular needs for a haircut, and, possibly, Kevin Keegan, who spent rather more than the then-quite-daring £5 a month on a haircut. And someone who spent a lot on clothes, no doubt. But the fact that ten such people could be picked out showed how comparatively rare that sort of vanity was in those days. If you made a list now of sportsmen who cared too much for their own appearance you'd be here until doomsday.
Do you apply these hairshirt morals to women too, or just men?
I can tell that you don't agree, Anabobz, but I'm guessing you're about my age? Do you not think values on this have shifted somewhat in our lifetimes? It's not a massive issue. I mean, of all the vices that there are, vanity/frivolousness/attention seeking is rather low on the list. But still - it strikes me as an odd change, and odd that it's so uncommented on. It's a reasonable question whether it applies in my mind to both men and women - not least because the instinctive reaction to someone who, for example, spends £30 or more on a haircut is that doing so is a bit unmanly. But on reflection, yes, I'd say I do apply these 'hairshirt morals' to women as well, or at least something similar. There is no need to spend thousands on clothes, and drawing attention to doing so, just looks a bit like conspicuous consumption.
There's a quite low upper ceiling to how good anyone - male or female - can look, and expense and effort which goes beyond that is not only wasted but also looks a bit, well, crass.
As I say above - these aren't strongly held feelings. But I feel kind of sure this is how everyone used to feel, and I don't understand how and why the dial has shifted.
See also - tattoos.
How much did your current shirt cost? I'm guessing around a month's income for around 650m people.
Everything is relative. So what if people pay a lot for this or that? If they can afford it it doesn't make it extravagant or vain.
Yebbut, 40 years ago it would have done. I'm not so much defending my own position as expressing bafflement that values of this have shifted so much in my lifetime without real comment.
And in answer to your rhetorical question, about £25.
I'm not necessarily against spending money. I've previously lamented my decision not to by a painting, which is clearly a frivolous purchase. Though if I spend money on clothing, I have to get a LOT of wear out of the item to justify it to myself. (And I don't think I've ever spent over £70 on a non-footwear clothing item; and the most I have ever spent on footwear was on a standard pair of Dr. Marten boots, which exemplify the sort of sartorial utilitarianism I favour.)
I just instinctively disapprove slightly of excess effort with one's own appearance, and of men who dress to draw attention to themselves. This is just the values of the world I grew up in. It was so ingrained it was hardly worthy of comment. And now it isn't. Do you not find this interesting?
The world you grew up in. As opposed to the world hundreds of years ago where dandyism and foppishness were celebrated.
Indeed - interesting. If only we had some 250 year olds on the board, they could tell us when this changed. My guess: WW1. It may actually be that the late 70s/80s/early 90s were the nadir for male sartorial exuberance. I remember my friend's father - who was of a slightly older generation than my own - recollecting his youth of the early 60s, when the key to attracting girls was dressing to the nines and young men would happily wear expensively tailored suits for a night out. Whereas when I was young: yes, secretly, you wanted to look good to advance your chances of meeting girls. But you very much didn't want to look like you were trying to look good.
Every era has had its code whether it was mods and rockers or burberry raincoats or stone island or adidas spezials. And most people have wanted to appear as more affluent than they are (eg the burberry and gucci keyring crazes). Ofc it is generally the gentry that cut about in moth-eaten sweaters and ancient clothes held together by baler twine.
But no, that's the point. The male youth of the 70s/80s/90s did not dress to look more affluent than they were. Baggy shirts and doc martens. Or heavy metal chic. Or punk. Or Mark E Smith out of the Fall. Or shell suits. The new romantics of the early 80s were a sort of exception to this, but even they didn't look affluent - they looked like they'd indiscriminately raided a charity shop to try to stage a pantomime.
Your kidding, right? That was the heart of the burberry raincoat/gucci keyring era. And it was a global phenomenon.
You see, I got more clothes than Muhammad Ali and I dress so viciously I got bodyguards, I got two big cars, that definitely ain't the wack I got a Lincoln Continental and a sunroof Cadillac So after school, I take a dip in the pool, which is really on the wall I got a color TV so I can see the Knicks play basketball Hear me talking 'bout checkbooks, credit cards, more money a than a sucker could ever spend
This is all bollocks. PB has determined that anyone who supports Trump is a crank and a lunatic. It can't be that close so someone has blundered.
Either that or PB is talking through its heart not its head.
We saw similar with Brexit. At the Uni all my colleagues expressed surprise at the result - no-one they knew voted for Brexit. They failed to see the self-selected bubble that they lived in.
Trump is the same. Almost all on PB see him as an extremely dangerous threat to democracy and potentially the free world. No-one can understand the mentality of someone in the US would is a supporter.
A lot of people just repeat propaganda regarding Trump, and have a prejudiced view of his supporters. I am not a supporter but it isn't too hard to see why people support him. The position I am particularly sympathetic to is the one that says that he is the better of two really bad options, with the alternative representing the greater risk.
He wants people deported back to their counties of origin. An internal shuffle of housing that might be hard to effect given there are 3,244 counties in the States.
Completely O/T, as it happens I have two grandchildren due to be born next month, to two different mothers, and nothing at all is known about the gender of either.
It occurs to me that on the information (or lack of it) I have, and doing the maths, there is at this moment a 75% chance that at least one of them will be a boy and a 75% chance that at least one of them will be a girl. Which feels slightly counter intuitive. Am I right?
Yes, that's right. In circumstances like these it's often easier to assess the probability of something NOT happening. i.e. the chances of neither being a boy = the chances of 2 girls = 25% - therefore the chance of at least one being a boy = 75%. And vice versa, of course. You have a 50% chance of having one of each.
Pedantically, this is probably not exactly true. I think boys are slightly more common than girls (I may have this the wrong way around). And there may be genetics you have passed on to your offspring which makes one outcome or the other more likely.
But near as dammit, both outcomes you raise are 75%
He wants people deported back to their counties of origin. An internal shuffle of housing that might be hard to effect given there are 3,244 counties in the States.
“When Northumbria sends its people, they’re not sending their best."
Interesting who this kind of reputational damage sticks to and who it doesnt. Both Tony and Cherie were well renowned 'grabbers'. Neither coming from proper money, solicited and gladly chomped through whatever they could, but it didnt hurt Tony in office. Starmer doesnt seem to have any kind of honeymoon protection at all.
During Blair's time the economic situation was generally favourable and they were able spray money around so people didn't care very much about the Blairs "grabbing"
Lord and Lady Starmer swanning around in the finest clothes someone else's money can buy while pensioners are going to freeze this winter is a rather harder "sell"
Pensioners have been mollycoddled for far too long.
We’re all in this together.
We had a PM in Boris Johnson that dressed like a scruff, it’s good for the UK for a PM to wear the best.
Can anyone looking really tell the difference between someone whose clothes cost £150 and someone whose clothes cost £1500? If they can, that says rather more about the observer than the observed.
I can, but then I have a keen eye for this.
See the second half of my comment above
When I was young, putting a lot of effort (and certainly a lot of time and/or expense) into your appearance was a bit frowned upon. You were expected, if possible, to achieve a certain level of cleanliness and/or personal hygiene, but anything more than that was a bit suspect - a bit 'look at me'. Actually, I say 'when I was young', I suspect most of men of my generation still think that way.
Maybe that is true, but it's hardly something to be proud of, is it?
I kind of think it is. We used to consider vanity a vice rather than a virtue. We used to consider showing off something to be dissuaded. We used to mock peacockery. A certain parsimoniousness whn it comes to one's appearance seems to me to be something to be applauded. By which I don't necessarily mean turning up in a t-shirt riven with holes and ketchup stains. But I rather disdain the mindset which thinks it acceptable to spend £1000 a year or more on one's own appearance. It seems frivolous. Do you remember the book of sports lists? I remember a list in it of sportsmen who cared rather too much for their own appearance - it included, I think, Peter Shilton, who would drive to a city 30 miles away for his particular needs for a haircut, and, possibly, Kevin Keegan, who spent rather more than the then-quite-daring £5 a month on a haircut. And someone who spent a lot on clothes, no doubt. But the fact that ten such people could be picked out showed how comparatively rare that sort of vanity was in those days. If you made a list now of sportsmen who cared too much for their own appearance you'd be here until doomsday.
Do you apply these hairshirt morals to women too, or just men?
I can tell that you don't agree, Anabobz, but I'm guessing you're about my age? Do you not think values on this have shifted somewhat in our lifetimes? It's not a massive issue. I mean, of all the vices that there are, vanity/frivolousness/attention seeking is rather low on the list. But still - it strikes me as an odd change, and odd that it's so uncommented on. It's a reasonable question whether it applies in my mind to both men and women - not least because the instinctive reaction to someone who, for example, spends £30 or more on a haircut is that doing so is a bit unmanly. But on reflection, yes, I'd say I do apply these 'hairshirt morals' to women as well, or at least something similar. There is no need to spend thousands on clothes, and drawing attention to doing so, just looks a bit like conspicuous consumption.
There's a quite low upper ceiling to how good anyone - male or female - can look, and expense and effort which goes beyond that is not only wasted but also looks a bit, well, crass.
As I say above - these aren't strongly held feelings. But I feel kind of sure this is how everyone used to feel, and I don't understand how and why the dial has shifted.
See also - tattoos.
How much did your current shirt cost? I'm guessing around a month's income for around 650m people.
Everything is relative. So what if people pay a lot for this or that? If they can afford it it doesn't make it extravagant or vain.
Yebbut, 40 years ago it would have done. I'm not so much defending my own position as expressing bafflement that values of this have shifted so much in my lifetime without real comment.
And in answer to your rhetorical question, about £25.
I'm not necessarily against spending money. I've previously lamented my decision not to by a painting, which is clearly a frivolous purchase. Though if I spend money on clothing, I have to get a LOT of wear out of the item to justify it to myself. (And I don't think I've ever spent over £70 on a non-footwear clothing item; and the most I have ever spent on footwear was on a standard pair of Dr. Marten boots, which exemplify the sort of sartorial utilitarianism I favour.)
I just instinctively disapprove slightly of excess effort with one's own appearance, and of men who dress to draw attention to themselves. This is just the values of the world I grew up in. It was so ingrained it was hardly worthy of comment. And now it isn't. Do you not find this interesting?
The world you grew up in. As opposed to the world hundreds of years ago where dandyism and foppishness were celebrated.
Indeed - interesting. If only we had some 250 year olds on the board, they could tell us when this changed. My guess: WW1. It may actually be that the late 70s/80s/early 90s were the nadir for male sartorial exuberance. I remember my friend's father - who was of a slightly older generation than my own - recollecting his youth of the early 60s, when the key to attracting girls was dressing to the nines and young men would happily wear expensively tailored suits for a night out. Whereas when I was young: yes, secretly, you wanted to look good to advance your chances of meeting girls. But you very much didn't want to look like you were trying to look good.
Every era has had its code whether it was mods and rockers or burberry raincoats or stone island or adidas spezials. And most people have wanted to appear as more affluent than they are (eg the burberry and gucci keyring crazes). Ofc it is generally the gentry that cut about in moth-eaten sweaters and ancient clothes held together by baler twine.
Interesting who this kind of reputational damage sticks to and who it doesnt. Both Tony and Cherie were well renowned 'grabbers'. Neither coming from proper money, solicited and gladly chomped through whatever they could, but it didnt hurt Tony in office. Starmer doesnt seem to have any kind of honeymoon protection at all.
During Blair's time the economic situation was generally favourable and they were able spray money around so people didn't care very much about the Blairs "grabbing"
Lord and Lady Starmer swanning around in the finest clothes someone else's money can buy while pensioners are going to freeze this winter is a rather harder "sell"
Pensioners have been mollycoddled for far too long.
We’re all in this together.
We had a PM in Boris Johnson that dressed like a scruff, it’s good for the UK for a PM to wear the best.
Can anyone looking really tell the difference between someone whose clothes cost £150 and someone whose clothes cost £1500? If they can, that says rather more about the observer than the observed.
I can, but then I have a keen eye for this.
See the second half of my comment above
When I was young, putting a lot of effort (and certainly a lot of time and/or expense) into your appearance was a bit frowned upon. You were expected, if possible, to achieve a certain level of cleanliness and/or personal hygiene, but anything more than that was a bit suspect - a bit 'look at me'. Actually, I say 'when I was young', I suspect most of men of my generation still think that way.
Maybe that is true, but it's hardly something to be proud of, is it?
I kind of think it is. We used to consider vanity a vice rather than a virtue. We used to consider showing off something to be dissuaded. We used to mock peacockery. A certain parsimoniousness whn it comes to one's appearance seems to me to be something to be applauded. By which I don't necessarily mean turning up in a t-shirt riven with holes and ketchup stains. But I rather disdain the mindset which thinks it acceptable to spend £1000 a year or more on one's own appearance. It seems frivolous. Do you remember the book of sports lists? I remember a list in it of sportsmen who cared rather too much for their own appearance - it included, I think, Peter Shilton, who would drive to a city 30 miles away for his particular needs for a haircut, and, possibly, Kevin Keegan, who spent rather more than the then-quite-daring £5 a month on a haircut. And someone who spent a lot on clothes, no doubt. But the fact that ten such people could be picked out showed how comparatively rare that sort of vanity was in those days. If you made a list now of sportsmen who cared too much for their own appearance you'd be here until doomsday.
Do you apply these hairshirt morals to women too, or just men?
I can tell that you don't agree, Anabobz, but I'm guessing you're about my age? Do you not think values on this have shifted somewhat in our lifetimes? It's not a massive issue. I mean, of all the vices that there are, vanity/frivolousness/attention seeking is rather low on the list. But still - it strikes me as an odd change, and odd that it's so uncommented on. It's a reasonable question whether it applies in my mind to both men and women - not least because the instinctive reaction to someone who, for example, spends £30 or more on a haircut is that doing so is a bit unmanly. But on reflection, yes, I'd say I do apply these 'hairshirt morals' to women as well, or at least something similar. There is no need to spend thousands on clothes, and drawing attention to doing so, just looks a bit like conspicuous consumption.
There's a quite low upper ceiling to how good anyone - male or female - can look, and expense and effort which goes beyond that is not only wasted but also looks a bit, well, crass.
As I say above - these aren't strongly held feelings. But I feel kind of sure this is how everyone used to feel, and I don't understand how and why the dial has shifted.
See also - tattoos.
How much did your current shirt cost? I'm guessing around a month's income for around 650m people.
Everything is relative. So what if people pay a lot for this or that? If they can afford it it doesn't make it extravagant or vain.
Yebbut, 40 years ago it would have done. I'm not so much defending my own position as expressing bafflement that values of this have shifted so much in my lifetime without real comment.
And in answer to your rhetorical question, about £25.
I'm not necessarily against spending money. I've previously lamented my decision not to by a painting, which is clearly a frivolous purchase. Though if I spend money on clothing, I have to get a LOT of wear out of the item to justify it to myself. (And I don't think I've ever spent over £70 on a non-footwear clothing item; and the most I have ever spent on footwear was on a standard pair of Dr. Marten boots, which exemplify the sort of sartorial utilitarianism I favour.)
I just instinctively disapprove slightly of excess effort with one's own appearance, and of men who dress to draw attention to themselves. This is just the values of the world I grew up in. It was so ingrained it was hardly worthy of comment. And now it isn't. Do you not find this interesting?
The world you grew up in. As opposed to the world hundreds of years ago where dandyism and foppishness were celebrated.
Indeed - interesting. If only we had some 250 year olds on the board, they could tell us when this changed. My guess: WW1. It may actually be that the late 70s/80s/early 90s were the nadir for male sartorial exuberance. I remember my friend's father - who was of a slightly older generation than my own - recollecting his youth of the early 60s, when the key to attracting girls was dressing to the nines and young men would happily wear expensively tailored suits for a night out. Whereas when I was young: yes, secretly, you wanted to look good to advance your chances of meeting girls. But you very much didn't want to look like you were trying to look good.
Every era has had its code whether it was mods and rockers or burberry raincoats or stone island or adidas spezials. And most people have wanted to appear as more affluent than they are (eg the burberry and gucci keyring crazes). Ofc it is generally the gentry that cut about in moth-eaten sweaters and ancient clothes held together by baler twine.
But no, that's the point. The male youth of the 70s/80s/90s did not dress to look more affluent than they were. Baggy shirts and doc martens. Or heavy metal chic. Or punk. Or Mark E Smith out of the Fall. Or shell suits. The new romantics of the early 80s were a sort of exception to this, but even they didn't look affluent - they looked like they'd indiscriminately raided a charity shop to try to stage a pantomime.
Your kidding, right? That was the heart of the burberry raincoat/gucci keyring era. And it was a global phenomenon.
You see, I got more clothes than Muhammad Ali and I dress so viciously I got bodyguards, I got two big cars, that definitely ain't the wack I got a Lincoln Continental and a sunroof Cadillac So after school, I take a dip in the pool, which is really on the wall I got a color TV so I can see the Knicks play basketball Hear me talking 'bout checkbooks, credit cards, more money a than a sucker could ever spend
" ...was informed that the funds had been sent to the Treasury as my company was deemed to have been dissolved, and that it was up to me to recover them. My company is registered in Cornwall, however, and the Treasury told me the funds would therefore have gone to the Duchy of Cornwall."
Seriously, though, it's extraordinary that even when the system is working properly that one only has two months to move the mnoney or Wills gets it.
So he seems to have finally plumped for "Comrade" Kamala. That's huge. Up to now I've been merrily asserting he's tracking to lose but that was when he hadn't settled on a devastating nickname for his opponent. Now that he has, whole different story. He's back in the ballgame. It's on a knife edge!
So he seems to have finally plumped for "Comrade" Kamala. That's huge. Up to now I've been merrily asserting he's tracking to lose but that was when he hadn't settled on a devastating nickname for his opponent. Now that he has, whole different story. He's back in the ballgame. It's on a knife edge!
He's upset that "Kamabala" didn't catch on, apparently. Said that people thought he was just mispronouncing it. Weird, that.
So he seems to have finally plumped for "Comrade" Kamala. That's huge. Up to now I've been merrily asserting he's tracking to lose but that was when he hadn't settled on a devastating nickname for his opponent. Now that he has, whole different story. He's back in the ballgame. It's on a knife edge!
I’d rather be called Comrade Kamala than Putin’s Gimp .
Springfield, Ohio city officials announced the cancellation of an annual celebration of diversity, arts and culture due to safety concerns due numerous threats https://x.com/Phil_Lewis_/status/1835680096683712957
Due to recent events in Springfield, Clark State will operate virtually on all campuses from Sept. 16-20. All activities will be rescheduled.
So he seems to have finally plumped for "Comrade" Kamala. That's huge. Up to now I've been merrily asserting he's tracking to lose but that was when he hadn't settled on a devastating nickname for his opponent. Now that he has, whole different story. He's back in the ballgame. It's on a knife edge!
He wants people deported back to their counties of origin. An internal shuffle of housing that might be hard to effect given there are 3,244 counties in the States.
{uses the Force}
I sense a Department of Interior Relocation, with a $17.6 billion budget, complete with its own heavily armed cops.
So he seems to have finally plumped for "Comrade" Kamala. That's huge. Up to now I've been merrily asserting he's tracking to lose but that was when he hadn't settled on a devastating nickname for his opponent. Now that he has, whole different story. He's back in the ballgame. It's on a knife edge!
Harris and Biden should call out Trump for his martyr routine and tell him to stfu . The gall to accuse others of inflammatory rhetoric when he does that on a daily basis . Regardless the bigger news this week will be the Fed cutting rates which will lead to a total Trump meltdown .
Harris and Biden should call out Trump for his martyr routine and tell him to stfu . The gall to accuse others of inflammatory rhetoric when he does that on a daily basis . Regardless the bigger news this week will be the Fed cutting rates which will lead to a total Trump meltdown .
So he seems to have finally plumped for "Comrade" Kamala. That's huge. Up to now I've been merrily asserting he's tracking to lose but that was when he hadn't settled on a devastating nickname for his opponent. Now that he has, whole different story. He's back in the ballgame. It's on a knife edge!
Crooked Hillary...
Sleepy Joe. Who still won.
I want you, I need you, there ain't no way I'm ever gonna love you But don't be sad...
This is all bollocks. PB has determined that anyone who supports Trump is a crank and a lunatic. It can't be that close so someone has blundered.
Either that or PB is talking through its heart not its head.
We saw similar with Brexit. At the Uni all my colleagues expressed surprise at the result - no-one they knew voted for Brexit. They failed to see the self-selected bubble that they lived in.
Trump is the same. Almost all on PB see him as an extremely dangerous threat to democracy and potentially the free world. No-one can understand the mentality of someone in the US would is a supporter.
Yep absolutely. It is one of PB's more notable failings.
I would say it is also the same with Reform.
There is a brilliant book (I've mentioned it a zillion times before) called "Mad Mobs and Englishmen" about the 2011 UK riots. The book seeks to explain the behaviour of those involved within a socio-ecnomic context.
I have asked them if they intend to do the same for the Stockport riots and while admitting it is "complicated" have so far unreservedly condemned the latter phenomenon.
Reading the 2011 book, however, you could apply much of what was written then to the Stockport rioters more recently.
SOUTHport.
Nothing bad ever happens in Stockport. It's like heaven, with a viaduct.
On the 2011 riots - it was a bit of a mixed picture, as I recall? In London it started out with an ostensibly political (i.e. racial) angle - in Manchester, it was largely scallies from Salford who were inspired by the opportunity for free stuff. (Admittedly in London there was a lot of the free stuff angle about it.)
End of Germany as an industrial power within a decade. Becoming an EU funds beneficiary within two. National dissolution within four.
He is spot on about demographics.
That said, his timings are likely wrong. Japan's demographics are about 20 years ahead of Germany's, and they are still a major industrial power.
The downside for Germany is that this is occurring at a time when one of their biggest industries (cars) is in state of technological change where the newest competitor has a structural advantage.
That isn't to say that the time frames are right (10 years is far too soon) but I suspect Germany is in for a rougher time than Japan..
Comments
You see, I got more clothes than Muhammad Ali and I dress so viciously I got bodyguards, I got two big cars, that definitely ain't the wack I got a Lincoln Continental and a sunroof Cadillac So after school, I take a dip in the pool, which is really on the wall I got a color TV so I can see the Knicks play basketball Hear me talking 'bout checkbooks, credit cards, more money a than a sucker could ever spend
etc
Is that like "Death Recorded"?
It does indeed seem to be incontrovertibly true. Ascribed to "Dominican Santeria" (vodou from the other end of the same island).
Awkward.
@NateSilver538
This number just keeps going up. Now almost a 1 in 4 chance that Harris wins the popular vote but loses the Electoral College.
https://x.com/NateSilver538/status/1835638691441577999
This sort of thing is how I remember people looking:
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/nostalgia/gallery/sankeys-manchesters-lost-nightclub-left-23491923
Mind you, what do people look like on a night out now? I've no idea.
From the local journalist reporting:
n an address to Judge Nicholas Barker, prosecutor Tim Evans said the prosecution had, following a review of the case, taken the view that it was not in the public interest to proceed. As a result, the case against Mr Glaister was being discontinued.
That decision was formally conveyed to Mr Glaister by Judge Barker, who concluded it had been “quite proper” for police to have taken action in the county early last month during a “period of great sensitivity”.
It had not been “necessary”, said the judge, for the prosecution to proceed with the case, meaning that Mr Glaister faces no further action.
“You are now very much on the police’s radar,” said Judge Barker as he issued advice about any online use going forward. “You will understand that posting material on the internet, whether that is on your social media or your platforms can — and does — constitute criminal offences and can have serious repercussions, and you should take great care in future.”
I cant think of anything more outrageous from the judge. How dare he.
This is normal, even if the social media angle is a bit new to some people.
Being a bit lenient on someone for a first offence, where they've pleaded guilty, etc, this is also not unusual.
There is no contradiction between the two situations and sentences.
But in all honesty expensive clothing would be wasted on me. I look vaguely scruffy in anything I wear. I am fat and hairy. Looking at pictures of a younger me, very occasionally I looked brilliant in a way in which I never really appreciated and makes me sigh wistfully, but more often I just look in need of a haircut. I was always in need of a haircut, any time outside of six days since I had last had a haircut. I wish I'd discovered self-maintenance of hair earlier - I may have sacrificed the occasional youthfully brilliant hair day fresh out of the barbers, but I'd have had reliably neat hair, and that would have made the difference to the overall look.
I've never been in the least bit tempted by expensive clothes, with one exception: last year, as we had parked there for a walk, we popped in to the wonderful House of Bruar in northern Perthshire: everything the Highland laird needs - and I was instantly struck by a lament that I would never have need or occasion to wear a full high quality tweed suit. It passed, of course - it would also have needed me to be 20 years younger and with an entirely different lifestyle - i.e. heir to some Highland estate. How there is a big enough market for this sort of stuff for this business to stay operational I have no idea.
On the other hand, if the polling error is the other way around, then it will be a comfortable Biden victory.
Just assuming that the error will be the same way for a third time in a row is - I think - naive. It might be. It might not be. But pollsters do strive to be accurate, and there have been some very significant changes. For example, in 2016 the vast majority of polls from big name pollsters were phone polls. In 2020, it was 50/50 between phone polls and online. And this time around, online panels are much more common.
Now, I don't know what difference this makes in the US context. But I do remember that in the Brexit referendum in the UK, the phone pollsters predicted a Remain win, while the online panels predicted a Brexit one. And it was the online panels which were right.
That seemed unlikely to me, so I looked her up and learned that Rose is married and has three children -- which, in my experience, is the minimum for pro-life women activists. They love children, and have more than the average.
And they almost all prefer being a Mrs. to being a Ms. Most would even prefer being a Miss to being a Ms.
These women pick up on the contempt that so many stylish leftists have for women who make the choices they do. Which often makes them support leaders like George W. Bush, and vulnerable to demgogues like the Loser.
They are, I think, now beginning to pick up on the contempt that Trump has for everyone, but especially women.
(Years ago, Gallup did a survey and found that abortion single-issue voters in the US were mostly women -- and that pro-life women outnumbered pro-choice women, by, as I recall, about 3-2. I haven't looked for more recent numbers.)
I therefore think they will tend to find people for whom $5 for 15 minutes work online is good money.
Given that different pollsters will apply their own particular adjustments (which may or may not be in the region of being valid) to account for difficulty in sampling in a way that captures the current electorate, how do the modellers then apply their own adjustment in a manner which rises above the level of guesswork ?
BTW my guess is that the polls will be misunderestimating Trump. My other guess is that I know Trump will win.
But as I've pointed out before I've concluded that I haven't a clue how this market is going to play out so I'm keeping well away from it for betting purposes.
It occurs to me that on the information (or lack of it) I have, and doing the maths, there is at this moment a 75% chance that at least one of them will be a boy and a 75% chance that at least one of them will be a girl. Which feels slightly counter intuitive. Am I right?
In circumstances like these it's often easier to assess the probability of something NOT happening. i.e. the chances of neither being a boy = the chances of 2 girls = 25% - therefore the chance of at least one being a boy = 75%.
And vice versa, of course.
You have a 50% chance of having one of each.
Pedantically, this is probably not exactly true. I think boys are slightly more common than girls (I may have this the wrong way around). And there may be genetics you have passed on to your offspring which makes one outcome or the other more likely.
But near as dammit, both outcomes you raise are 75%
"There are two children. At least one of them is a boy. What's the chance that both are?"
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/16/upshot/polls-trump-harris.html
HIs conclusion seems to be that there is a very real chance Trump will outperform the polling.
A dangerous thing to assume but, from a 'gut feel' perspective, this feels in the ball park. A Trump voter who believes in the "surveillance state" and the "corrupt media" may feel they are at risk from stating their opinion even to an anonymised survey. I am struggling to see why a Kamala Harris voter would have the same concerns.
In any event, I am inclined to think with @SouthamObserver on this one, namely that, looking at the issues that voters care about most - the economy and immigration - point to a Trump victory.
such a defeat would be an understandable disappointment for a Welsh Methodist father, I feel Huw's pain, but such a calamitous youth didn't turn all of us into raging bastards.
Boy A, Girl B
Girl A, Boy B
Boy A, Boy B
So one-third?
(I'm probably wrong so please feel free to point and laugh)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States
(I recall reading, years ago, of a minister in the UK concluding that the surplus of boys was part of the divine plan -- since you needed extra men to make up for the losses in wars. Middle 1800s, if I recall correctly.)
Though I think the answer in my case was two thirds, so perhaps I don't remember to form of the question as clearly as I thought! Maybe it was
"There are two children. One of them is a boy. What's the chance the other one is?"
Presumably the reason evolution has settled on this particular split is that over the thousands of years of human existence more men have died early in life than women, so the societies where the gene for 2.1 F:M did better than those which were 2.0 or 1.9 or anything else.
And the reason more men died early in life included, perhaps, different roles in inter-group conflict situations.
* one of the ignoble awards last week showed that a coin has a 51% of landing the same way as it was flipped.
** 105 males are born for every 100 girls.
pollwebpage out that has Harris leading in NV.https://www.thetrafalgargroup.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/NV-24-General-0913_Report.pdf
I even wrote a header about how - across the developed world - people feel poorer as wages have not kept up with inflation, and are therefore kicking out incumbents. At that time, I made it clear that Trump should be the favourite for that reason.
But elections are not solely won on the economy. If they were, then the Conservatives would have had an incredible electoral victory in 1997 rather than a shellecking.
Trump has been a very poor candidate this time around, much less strong than in 2020 or 2016. He's clearly less mentally strong, and he's not filling stadiums like he once did. Polling evidence shows fewer Republicans are excited about voting for him than Democrats for Harris. And abortion remains a millstone around his neck. Pro-Life voters aren't thankful to him for handing it to the States, while Pro-Choice voters want it reversed.
I think it remains a very close election; now that may change between now and polling day - and that could happen in either direction - but as for now, it's on a knife edge. I would make Harris the very narrow favourite, but my policy is simply to sell either candidate if they get to 55% probability on Betfair, and that's worked out very well so far.
For example, we see in lots of species that the female is the gatekeeper, and the sex that is exercising sexual selection. So the surplus of males might be optimal because it increases the amount of competition, and therefore the speed at which advantageous traits spread through a population.
So, with that explanation, it might be the case that you'd want a surplus of males even if females were slightly less likely to reach reproductive age, because the optimal imbalance at reproductive age might be 1.25:1 M:F.
We can't necessarily assume that evolution is aiming for a 1:1 ratio at reproductive age.
If you look solely at demographics (i.e. graduates and the young vote Democrat, non-graduates and the old vote Republicans), then Nevada and Arizona should be going ever more Blue (with smaller shifts in that direction in North Carolina and Georgia), while Wisconsin and Michigan (and to a lesser extent Minnesota and Pennsylvania) should be going ever more Red.
Or, to put it another way, Arizona and Nevada are becoming more New Mexico.
While much of the rustbelt is turning more Ohio.
It's an interesting flipping of the electoral calculus, that benefits Trump in 2024. Longer term, of course, those trends could put Texas into play.
https://x.com/peterzeihan/status/1835654953114685637
End of Germany as an industrial power within a decade. Becoming an EU funds beneficiary within two. National dissolution within four.
In the end my wife and daughters each bought a Christmas decoration and I bought a tin of barley sugars.
https://www.thetrafalgargroup.org/news/nv-pres-0915/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2024/sep/16/trump-shooting-attempt-suspect-detained-ryan-wesley-routh
..Potential would-be Trump assassin spent nearly 12 hours in tree line of golf club
In the complaint, FBI special agent Mark A Thomas wrote that he learned from Ryan Wesley Routh’s mobile phone service provider that his device was around the tree line of Donald Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, for nearly 12 hours.
A phone registered to Routh, who is facing federal gun charges over yesterday’s incident that the FBI has said may have been an assassination attempt, “was located in the vicinity of the area along the tree line … 1.59am until approximate 1.31pm on September 15, 2024”...
I'd buy a single pork pie in thanks for their robust, water absorbent hand towels.
There are some places that are close to that per head. I’d love to go to but can’t really afford it.
While he calls others a threat to democracy.
https://x.com/Angry_Staffer/status/1835697819283337625
Or "the enemy within".
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-blames-biden-harris-rhetoric-latest-assassination-attempt-says-he-save-country
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/sep/16/lloyds-sent-my-37000-to-the-duchy-of-cornwall-and-i-cant-get-it-back
" ...was informed that the funds had been sent to the Treasury as my company was deemed to have been dissolved, and that it was up to me to recover them. My company is registered in Cornwall, however, and the Treasury told me the funds would therefore have gone to the Duchy of Cornwall."
Seriously, though, it's extraordinary that even when the system is working properly that one only has two months to move the mnoney or Wills gets it.
But will it win over the UK centrist dad sector at which it is obviously aimed and which is so crucial to Trump's hopes? Not looking good.
Said that people thought he was just mispronouncing it. Weird, that.
https://x.com/Phil_Lewis_/status/1835680096683712957
Due to recent events in Springfield, Clark State will operate virtually on all campuses from Sept. 16-20. All activities will be rescheduled.
https://x.com/clarkstate/status/1835382825849102375
Kenwood Elementary School in Springfield, Ohio, EVACUATED due to another bomb threat.
https://x.com/RpsAgainstTrump/status/1835693340899049900
@RpsAgainstTrump
·
39m
MAGA politicians: Everyone has to lower the heat and tone down the rhetoric.
Trump just now: "The bullets are flying, and it will only get worse!"
https://x.com/RpsAgainstTrump
I sense a Department of Interior Relocation, with a $17.6 billion budget, complete with its own heavily armed cops.
The building will need extra security sadly.
But don't be sad...
Do Scotland want Trump?
That said, his timings are likely wrong. Japan's demographics are about 20 years ahead of Germany's, and they are still a major industrial power.
That isn't to say that the time frames are right (10 years is far too soon) but I suspect Germany is in for a rougher time than Japan..