This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"
Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!
All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same
What a shower
It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history
Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?
It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the reactionary right, has no such bar to leap.
We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is now made. Different standards, higher for the Left.
Alan Sugar is an odd example of someone who never attracts criticism or mockery. Hard to quantify, but my bet would be that the amount of criticism and mockery aimed at Alan Sugar comfortably exceeds that of Barry Gardiner, of whom few people have heard. Dave Gorman has essentially made a career out of mocking Alan Sugar.
This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"
Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!
All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same
What a shower
It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history
Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
Because Emma Thompson bangs on about climate change. And makes all kinds of statements about evil over consumption by bad people.
And arrives at the conference to do so by first class or someone’s private jet.
It’s the public and aggravated hypocrisy.
She flew in from the USA, once, to join an Extinction Rebellion event 😂😂😂😂
At the time I checked, and afaics she hadn't insulated her house properly, either.
Some houses it’s difficult to insulate. Can cause moisture build up.
Had to put lap vents in my loft when I insulated it.
I wouldn’t condemn her for that as it just is not always practical.
Given that money isn’t a problem for her, she can use the more expensive, exotic insulation tech. This can be much thinner than the regular stuff and can be engineered to deal with all kinds of moisture and movement issues.
I’ve noted, over the years that many of the innovative things that the ultra rich do in their own homes become common within a decade. I’ve seen this with insulation products, light wells, powered roof hatches, water filtering and reclamation - the early adopters pay the way for the rest of us.
I’ve seen some London mansions where the house uses nearly no external power and very little water either.
Interesting from @foxy - yes to try and get the appeal of Trump you have to dispense with facts and reason and plunge into the netherworld of primitive brain chemistries.
YES! Voting intention is not rational but emotional or instinctive: people vote with their gut and their head, it isn't necessarily transactional.
Yes, I agree. Even what plausibly presents as cool clear reason is more often than not informed by the 'urges'.
So it's just a matter of degree - eg Trump/MAGA is close to 100% that.
The entire enlightenment is flawed as ir presupposes humans are rational. Thats why western civilization is hitting a dead end.
1) No it isn't (the enlightenement concept is a cluster of projects, including for example the sort of projects that result in solar power, universal franchise, women's equality and freedom of thought) 2) No it doesn't (read David Hume on ethical emotivism for just one example) 3) No it isn't (the world is beating a path to the western civilization's door).
Apart from that you are quite right.
Actually its not. The future seems more likely robust dictatorships combined with a market economy such as china and dubai. Why? People arent rational so democracy eventually implodes under its own contradictions.
People keep on getting confused about what a country's system is government is for. Mostly it is for providing the least violent way of managing conflict within society.
Generally speaking, giving people a say by giving them a vote tends to act as a way of defusing people's frustrations and anger more effectively than building a repressive state apparatus to deny the people a say.
Interesting from @foxy - yes to try and get the appeal of Trump you have to dispense with facts and reason and plunge into the netherworld of primitive brain chemistries.
YES! Voting intention is not rational but emotional or instinctive: people vote with their gut and their head, it isn't necessarily transactional.
Yes, I agree. Even what plausibly presents as cool clear reason is more often than not informed by the 'urges'.
So it's just a matter of degree - eg Trump/MAGA is close to 100% that.
The entire enlightenment is flawed as ir presupposes humans are rational. Thats why western civilization is hitting a dead end.
1) No it isn't (the enlightenement concept is a cluster of projects, including for example the sort of projects that result in solar power, universal franchise, women's equality and freedom of thought) 2) No it doesn't (read David Hume on ethical emotivism for just one example) 3) No it isn't (the world is beating a path to the western civilization's door).
Apart from that you are quite right.
Actually its not. The future seems more likely robust dictatorships combined with a market economy such as china and dubai. Why? People arent rational so democracy eventually implodes under its own contradictions.
People keep on getting confused about what a country's system is government is for. Mostly it is for providing the least violent way of managing conflict within society.
Generally speaking, giving people a say by giving them a vote tends to act as a way of defusing people's frustrations and anger more effectively than building a repressive state apparatus to deny the people a say.
Not working though now is it. Peoples anger and frustration is growing despite just voting in a new govt.
Thanks. OTOH I should think anyone from a completely alien culture encountering Howell's Collegium Regale sung by a decent English choir (St John's Cambridge and Andrew Nethsingha attached below!) would be similarly awestruck. We get used to it and take it for granted because it is so English, but suppose you had never met this before, especially the Gloria:
I like Howells, but it is too polished and sweet to have the power of that Aramaic liturgy, which really sounds like a beautiful wail of helpless worship from some cave-church in the Jordanian desert, music which is painful in its adoration like John Updike's description of an aroused vagina being "helpless in its own nectar"
This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"
Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!
All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same
What a shower
It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history
Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
And to think I loaned my vote to that girning, squirming, midwit, piggy-eyed hypocritical twat-of-all-twats, Skyr Toolmakersson
NEVER AGAIN
Well, we did warn you.
Once bitten, forever shy
The problem was, and is, not who to vote against but who to vote for.
However terrible Labour have been with the unforced and avoidable errors there is no possibility for most Tory deserters that, looking back, they should have voted Tory.
If a collective mind exists (ask Jung) then the conclusion from the July result might be:
1) Tories are finished forever unless.. 2) In July 2024 we needed a government that could steer the country without the contortions of a coalition 3) Only Labour could be that 4) A tiny % vote for Labour meant they are on trial, and had better be as brilliant as we hope because they could be finished one day as well... 5) There is a centre left party with seats and a right wing 'Alternative fur Vereinigtes Königreich' called Reform with votes neither of whom are top of the bill at the moment but would like to be, and the voter can deliver that if they like.
Psephologically there won't be a dull moment.
As it stands I will vote Reform next time, unless the Tories can pull themselves together under a good leader
But then that presumes I am still in the country to vote, which is really quite unlikely
Didn't the tories change the vote system so ex-pats could vote even if away for decades?
Yes. All UK citizens can now vote, except for prisoners.
Apart from the homeless without a photoid.
I'm against photoids, it's why I started the Campaign for Real Photons
This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"
Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!
All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same
What a shower
It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history
Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?
It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the right, has no such bar to leap.
We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is made now. Different standards, higher for the Left.
No. It’s about their respective, publicly held beliefs.
Alan Sugar wants very much to be Big Business Tycoon. So having a helicopter is entirely in line with what he sells himself as. He’s not being hypocritical.
If you sell yourself as a Working Class Man Of The People, private helicopters are hypocritical.
You again make my point. Being left wing and at the same time enjoying a luxurious lifestyle is deemed by many (eg you here) as "hypocrisy". This is applying different (higher) standards to such people.
And you miss the point again.
For example, there are numerous examples of people who proclaim “Dog eat Dog Capitalism”. And then get ridiculed for buying government contracts by the yard and renting politicians to do it.
It is about applying *your own, self proclaimed, standards, to yourself*.
I don't go around missing points. C'mon.
What are the "self proclaimed standards" that a progressive is flouting by enjoying an affluent lifestyle?
What is the term "Champagne Socialist" getting at?
This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"
Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!
All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same
What a shower
It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history
Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
And to think I loaned my vote to that girning, squirming, midwit, piggy-eyed hypocritical twat-of-all-twats, Skyr Toolmakersson
NEVER AGAIN
Well, we did warn you.
Once bitten, forever shy
The problem was, and is, not who to vote against but who to vote for.
However terrible Labour have been with the unforced and avoidable errors there is no possibility for most Tory deserters that, looking back, they should have voted Tory.
If a collective mind exists (ask Jung) then the conclusion from the July result might be:
1) Tories are finished forever unless.. 2) In July 2024 we needed a government that could steer the country without the contortions of a coalition 3) Only Labour could be that 4) A tiny % vote for Labour meant they are on trial, and had better be as brilliant as we hope because they could be finished one day as well... 5) There is a centre left party with seats and a right wing 'Alternative fur Vereinigtes Königreich' called Reform with votes neither of whom are top of the bill at the moment but would like to be, and the voter can deliver that if they like.
Psephologically there won't be a dull moment.
As it stands I will vote Reform next time, unless the Tories can pull themselves together under a good leader
But then that presumes I am still in the country to vote, which is really quite unlikely
Unless you are registered to vote in a seat where Reform are 1st or second to Labour, then a vote for Reform is a wasted vote under FPTP in terms of getting rid of this Labour government
This may of course be right, but the world changes and may change again.
Two points. In the 1970 election I attended an Enfield (Southgate) hustings where the audience had a good laugh at the Labour candidate - who was certain to lose - who said that one day the seat would go Labour. I was 'up for Portillo' when it happened, pre boundary changes. It's now dead safe Labour (though boundary changes).
Take Chichester. With the Tory 35 point lead in 2019 it would be fair to say that any vote but Tory was a mere token gesture. In 2024 the LDs won by a mile with a 30 point swing.
A change is really possible in a circumstance unique in my lifetime: Where both Tories and Labour could be just deeply unpopular, uncool, and out of fashion. We are not there yet, but to everyone's surprise, Labour are trying their hardest to emulate the Tories on that journey whose destination is a GE with LD v Reform being top of the bill.
Yes but Labour were second in 1970 and 1992 in Enfield Southgate so it doesn't really change my point.
The LDs were second in 2019 in Chichester as well.
As I said earlier unless the LDs can start to appeal beyond middle class voters to working class voters and Reform appeal beyond white working class voters to middle class voters neither will have any hope of replacing Labour or the Tories anytime soon
This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"
Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!
All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same
What a shower
It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history
Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
And to think I loaned my vote to that girning, squirming, midwit, piggy-eyed hypocritical twat-of-all-twats, Skyr Toolmakersson
NEVER AGAIN
Well, we did warn you.
Once bitten, forever shy
The problem was, and is, not who to vote against but who to vote for.
However terrible Labour have been with the unforced and avoidable errors there is no possibility for most Tory deserters that, looking back, they should have voted Tory.
If a collective mind exists (ask Jung) then the conclusion from the July result might be:
1) Tories are finished forever unless.. 2) In July 2024 we needed a government that could steer the country without the contortions of a coalition 3) Only Labour could be that 4) A tiny % vote for Labour meant they are on trial, and had better be as brilliant as we hope because they could be finished one day as well... 5) There is a centre left party with seats and a right wing 'Alternative fur Vereinigtes Königreich' called Reform with votes neither of whom are top of the bill at the moment but would like to be, and the voter can deliver that if they like.
Psephologically there won't be a dull moment.
As it stands I will vote Reform next time, unless the Tories can pull themselves together under a good leader
But then that presumes I am still in the country to vote, which is really quite unlikely
Unless you are registered to vote in a seat where Reform are 1st or second to Labour, then a vote for Reform is a wasted vote under FPTP in terms of getting rid of this Labour government
This may of course be right, but the world changes and may change again.
Two points. In the 1970 election I attended an Enfield (Southgate) hustings where the audience had a good laugh at the Labour candidate - who was certain to lose - who said that one day the seat would go Labour. I was 'up for Portillo' when it happened, pre boundary changes. It's now dead safe Labour (though boundary changes).
Take Chichester. With the Tory 35 point lead in 2019 it would be fair to say that any vote but Tory was a mere token gesture. In 2024 the LDs won by a mile with a 30 point swing.
A change is really possible in a circumstance unique in my lifetime: Where both Tories and Labour could be just deeply unpopular, uncool, and out of fashion. We are not there yet, but to everyone's surprise, Labour are trying their hardest to emulate the Tories on that journey whose destination is a GE with LD v Reform being top of the bill.
One of the big surprises in 1997 was Castle Point going Labour, due to a feud between the Conservative candidate and a significant part of the local party. He ate humble pie afterwards and the seat has been it's natural Conservative self ever since.
- if you are irreligious/secular, why do you not drink?
This is not a gotcha, I am properly curious. Alcohol, in moderation (heck, in excess, but that's maybe just me) - is one of life's great pleasures. Really really great
Yes it's bad for you in some ways but so is sleeping with dozens of beautiful women, or so I am told by my married and feminist friends
So, why not indulge? You're not going to Islamic hell, there's no one eating up the human-sized kebab skewers, you don't believe in it
It started off as a religious thing, when I arrived at university I fell off the Muslim wagon but I saw people make really bad decisions when drunk.
Then after university I was working 100 plus hours I didn't want any distractions, I would work, go home, watch some sport, sleep.
Then I moved to North Yorkshire and working in Leeds, and had a girlfriend who lived in the Wirral who didn't drive.
I was doing 25,000 miles a year commuting and maintaining a relationship, I was worried about ending up with a drink driving charge because early in my career a colleague ended up with a drink driving conviction despite not drinking much.
I've always managed to have a good time without needing to drink alcohol or consume drugs.
Edit - My mother has forgiven my many transgressions but me being drunk would put her six foot under.
A comprehensive answer. Thankyou
I am always intrigued by teetotallers. My eldest daughter is one
As we dropped her off at St Andrews for her first (nervous) weekend at Uni I did worry about how she would cope without booze to overcome her shyness. I asked her why not try just a glass of wine, she said maybe, but "I don't like booze, because I've seen you and Mum"
TBF to me (and not to her Mum) her mum is quite a bad drunk. Gets querulous and nasty and then falls into a sullen sleep. If that was my one main example of a drinker I too might be teetotal
However the daughter is now havering because she's spent long holdays with me and she's seen that I am a benign drunk, I just become more mellow and cheerful as I drink (except on here)
Of course, she might just be the kind of person that simply doesn't like to drink. Like you. And gets by just fine
I do think you are missing out on something, but then non-drinkers would say exactly the same to me. Each to their own!
"I just become more mellow and cheerful as I drink (except on here)"
Funniest PB comment in ages. My italics.
I prefer “…You are the most credulous fuckwit..” from the guy now moaning that he was fooled by that master of deception, Keir Starmer.
This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"
Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!
All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same
What a shower
It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history
Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
Because Emma Thompson bangs on about climate change. And makes all kinds of statements about evil over consumption by bad people.
And arrives at the conference to do so by first class or someone’s private jet.
It’s the public and aggravated hypocrisy.
She flew in from the USA, once, to join an Extinction Rebellion event 😂😂😂😂
At the time I checked, and afaics she hadn't insulated her house properly, either.
Some houses it’s difficult to insulate. Can cause moisture build up.
Had to put lap vents in my loft when I insulated it.
I wouldn’t condemn her for that as it just is not always practical.
I would.
IMO the propensity of ER to be made up of well-off people who try to impose their opinions on the rest of us whilst being hypocrites has sunk their credibility. And remember, I'm a committed activist for lower energy and greener housing.
If she's lecturing the rest of society whilst being worth 10s of millions, I expect her to have her own house in order (so to speak), or be laughed to scorn.
If her house is not easy to insulate, I would expect her to have done the difficult job which she can easily fund to have done professionally, or to have moved somewhere that fits her declared philosophy.
After all, lap vents or similar, or even something more complex, aren't exactly a difficult solution even for DIY.
Lap,vents are a piece of piss to fit. They cost next to nothing too. You don’t even need them. Just something to do the same job to improve airflow.
Interesting from @foxy - yes to try and get the appeal of Trump you have to dispense with facts and reason and plunge into the netherworld of primitive brain chemistries.
YES! Voting intention is not rational but emotional or instinctive: people vote with their gut and their head, it isn't necessarily transactional.
Yes, I agree. Even what plausibly presents as cool clear reason is more often than not informed by the 'urges'.
So it's just a matter of degree - eg Trump/MAGA is close to 100% that.
The entire enlightenment is flawed as ir presupposes humans are rational. Thats why western civilization is hitting a dead end.
1) No it isn't (the enlightenement concept is a cluster of projects, including for example the sort of projects that result in solar power, universal franchise, women's equality and freedom of thought) 2) No it doesn't (read David Hume on ethical emotivism for just one example) 3) No it isn't (the world is beating a path to the western civilization's door).
Apart from that you are quite right.
Actually its not. The future seems more likely robust dictatorships combined with a market economy such as china and dubai. Why? People arent rational so democracy eventually implodes under its own contradictions.
People keep on getting confused about what a country's system is government is for. Mostly it is for providing the least violent way of managing conflict within society.
Generally speaking, giving people a say by giving them a vote tends to act as a way of defusing people's frustrations and anger more effectively than building a repressive state apparatus to deny the people a say.
Not working though now is it. Peoples anger and frustration is growing despite just voting in a new govt.
By historical norms, even just in the democratic era, people are not really all that angry.
Frustrated old people just aren't as much of a threat to public order as frustrated young people.
Now I'm listening to Michelle Shocked's "Come a Long Way"
Ya gotta mix it up. Shel Shocked is one of the great neglected talents of the 1980s-90s
Her song Anchorage has been a favourite of mine since a girl put it on a mixtape for me when I was 16. Don’t know why she put it on as not romantic but glad she did.
This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"
Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!
All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same
What a shower
It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history
Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?
It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the reactionary right, has no such bar to leap.
We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is now made. Different standards, higher for the Left.
Alan Sugar is an odd example of someone who never attracts criticism or mockery. Hard to quantify, but my bet would be that the amount of criticism and mockery aimed at Alan Sugar comfortably exceeds that of Barry Gardiner, of whom few people have heard. Dave Gorman has essentially made a career out of mocking Alan Sugar.
Ok. Let's not get too literal though. Replace with Simon Cowell if that helps the point. Not on the Left, can buy a helicopter and nobody bats an eyelid. Barry Gardiner does it, all hell breaks out.
This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"
Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!
All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same
What a shower
It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history
Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?
It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the right, has no such bar to leap.
We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is made now. Different standards, higher for the Left.
No. It’s about their respective, publicly held beliefs.
Alan Sugar wants very much to be Big Business Tycoon. So having a helicopter is entirely in line with what he sells himself as. He’s not being hypocritical.
If you sell yourself as a Working Class Man Of The People, private helicopters are hypocritical.
You again make my point. Being left wing and at the same time enjoying a luxurious lifestyle is deemed by many (eg you here) as "hypocrisy". This is applying different (higher) standards to such people.
And you miss the point again.
For example, there are numerous examples of people who proclaim “Dog eat Dog Capitalism”. And then get ridiculed for buying government contracts by the yard and renting politicians to do it.
It is about applying *your own, self proclaimed, standards, to yourself*.
I don't go around missing points. C'mon.
What are the "self proclaimed standards" that a progressive is flouting by enjoying an affluent lifestyle?
What is the term "Champagne Socialist" getting at?
The classic of the genre was the U.K. Communist Party, which was largely funded by rent on property they owned, for many years.
We have a recent example of a Labour MP who is a semi-slum lord. And campaigned against landlords.
This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"
Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!
All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same
What a shower
It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history
Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
And to think I loaned my vote to that girning, squirming, midwit, piggy-eyed hypocritical twat-of-all-twats, Skyr Toolmakersson
NEVER AGAIN
Well, we did warn you.
Once bitten, forever shy
The problem was, and is, not who to vote against but who to vote for.
However terrible Labour have been with the unforced and avoidable errors there is no possibility for most Tory deserters that, looking back, they should have voted Tory.
If a collective mind exists (ask Jung) then the conclusion from the July result might be:
1) Tories are finished forever unless.. 2) In July 2024 we needed a government that could steer the country without the contortions of a coalition 3) Only Labour could be that 4) A tiny % vote for Labour meant they are on trial, and had better be as brilliant as we hope because they could be finished one day as well... 5) There is a centre left party with seats and a right wing 'Alternative fur Vereinigtes Königreich' called Reform with votes neither of whom are top of the bill at the moment but would like to be, and the voter can deliver that if they like.
Psephologically there won't be a dull moment.
As it stands I will vote Reform next time, unless the Tories can pull themselves together under a good leader
But then that presumes I am still in the country to vote, which is really quite unlikely
Unless you are registered to vote in a seat where Reform are 1st or second to Labour, then a vote for Reform is a wasted vote under FPTP in terms of getting rid of this Labour government
This may of course be right, but the world changes and may change again.
Two points. In the 1970 election I attended an Enfield (Southgate) hustings where the audience had a good laugh at the Labour candidate - who was certain to lose - who said that one day the seat would go Labour. I was 'up for Portillo' when it happened, pre boundary changes. It's now dead safe Labour (though boundary changes).
Take Chichester. With the Tory 35 point lead in 2019 it would be fair to say that any vote but Tory was a mere token gesture. In 2024 the LDs won by a mile with a 30 point swing.
A change is really possible in a circumstance unique in my lifetime: Where both Tories and Labour could be just deeply unpopular, uncool, and out of fashion. We are not there yet, but to everyone's surprise, Labour are trying their hardest to emulate the Tories on that journey whose destination is a GE with LD v Reform being top of the bill.
I have to say that a Reform-LD coalition would probably be the best government of my lifetime. Or if not, certainly the most interesting.
Reform-Tory (or Reform-Labour) coalition would be a nightmare. As would Tory-Labour. Lib-Labour with latter the minor partners could work. Lib-Tory (either way around) worked very well.
Interesting from @foxy - yes to try and get the appeal of Trump you have to dispense with facts and reason and plunge into the netherworld of primitive brain chemistries.
YES! Voting intention is not rational but emotional or instinctive: people vote with their gut and their head, it isn't necessarily transactional.
Yes, I agree. Even what plausibly presents as cool clear reason is more often than not informed by the 'urges'.
So it's just a matter of degree - eg Trump/MAGA is close to 100% that.
The entire enlightenment is flawed as ir presupposes humans are rational. Thats why western civilization is hitting a dead end.
1) No it isn't (the enlightenement concept is a cluster of projects, including for example the sort of projects that result in solar power, universal franchise, women's equality and freedom of thought) 2) No it doesn't (read David Hume on ethical emotivism for just one example) 3) No it isn't (the world is beating a path to the western civilization's door).
Apart from that you are quite right.
Actually its not. The future seems more likely robust dictatorships combined with a market economy such as china and dubai. Why? People arent rational so democracy eventually implodes under its own contradictions.
People keep on getting confused about what a country's system is government is for. Mostly it is for providing the least violent way of managing conflict within society.
Generally speaking, giving people a say by giving them a vote tends to act as a way of defusing people's frustrations and anger more effectively than building a repressive state apparatus to deny the people a say.
Not working though now is it. Peoples anger and frustration is growing despite just voting in a new govt.
By historical norms, even just in the democratic era, people are not really all that angry.
Frustrated old people just aren't as much of a threat to public order as frustrated young people.
I would think the young are just as frustrated for different reasons though. Obviously though they have the advantage of being young and all the fun that goes with that.
This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"
Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!
All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same
What a shower
It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history
Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
And to think I loaned my vote to that girning, squirming, midwit, piggy-eyed hypocritical twat-of-all-twats, Skyr Toolmakersson
NEVER AGAIN
Well, we did warn you.
Once bitten, forever shy
The problem was, and is, not who to vote against but who to vote for.
However terrible Labour have been with the unforced and avoidable errors there is no possibility for most Tory deserters that, looking back, they should have voted Tory.
If a collective mind exists (ask Jung) then the conclusion from the July result might be:
1) Tories are finished forever unless.. 2) In July 2024 we needed a government that could steer the country without the contortions of a coalition 3) Only Labour could be that 4) A tiny % vote for Labour meant they are on trial, and had better be as brilliant as we hope because they could be finished one day as well... 5) There is a centre left party with seats and a right wing 'Alternative fur Vereinigtes Königreich' called Reform with votes neither of whom are top of the bill at the moment but would like to be, and the voter can deliver that if they like.
Psephologically there won't be a dull moment.
As it stands I will vote Reform next time, unless the Tories can pull themselves together under a good leader
But then that presumes I am still in the country to vote, which is really quite unlikely
Didn't the tories change the vote system so ex-pats could vote even if away for decades?
Yes. All UK citizens can now vote, except for prisoners.
Apart from the homeless without a photoid.
I'm against photoids, it's why I started the Campaign for Real Photons
This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"
Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!
All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same
What a shower
It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history
Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?
It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the right, has no such bar to leap.
We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is made now. Different standards, higher for the Left.
No. It’s about their respective, publicly held beliefs.
Alan Sugar wants very much to be Big Business Tycoon. So having a helicopter is entirely in line with what he sells himself as. He’s not being hypocritical.
If you sell yourself as a Working Class Man Of The People, private helicopters are hypocritical.
You again make my point. Being left wing and at the same time enjoying a luxurious lifestyle is deemed by many (eg you here) as "hypocrisy". This is applying different (higher) standards to such people.
And you miss the point again.
For example, there are numerous examples of people who proclaim “Dog eat Dog Capitalism”. And then get ridiculed for buying government contracts by the yard and renting politicians to do it.
It is about applying *your own, self proclaimed, standards, to yourself*.
I don't go around missing points. C'mon.
What are the "self proclaimed standards" that a progressive is flouting by enjoying an affluent lifestyle?
What is the term "Champagne Socialist" getting at?
Dont you think a new asylum centre in Hampstead would be a good idea. Perhaps near the Heath so you could enjoy the diversity on your walks.
This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"
Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!
All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same
What a shower
It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history
Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
No.
It’s because if you make something a policy plank, you will be judged by your own policy.
Also you can get away with a bit of self enrichment if everybody else feels they are doing well e.g Blair / Mandy. When you tell everybody well sorry times are tough, everything is in the shitter, all your taxes are going up, benefits been cut, nothing I can do..sorry i must go now i have tickets to private box at spurs...it doesn't go down well.
Yes, andyou can actually add it up
Bridget P's free Swift tickets cost £700, so that's two and a bit dead and frozen grannies, so she can go see Taylor Swiift because "that bribe was hard to turn down"
Starmer's £8,000 Arsenal box is 29 frozen dead grans, with maybe another losing a leg to hypothermia, because "fair do's everyone will understand that I need that luxury private box and I shouldn't pay for it"
Michelle Mone's £100m for unusable PPE, actually out of taxpayer funds not from a donor, is 250,000 dead grannies... They're guilty of taking some free hospitality, which they've declared but it doesn't look good because they might be influenced. They've not got fingers in the taxpayers' till past their armpit to the tune of 100s of £milliions like the Conservatives
It is difficult to believe that a person who had their company credit card taken away from them because of misuse, who wrote a book riddled with plagiarism, and who submitted false expense accounts to Parliamentary authorities, is now the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"
Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!
All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same
What a shower
It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history
Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
And to think I loaned my vote to that girning, squirming, midwit, piggy-eyed hypocritical twat-of-all-twats, Skyr Toolmakersson
NEVER AGAIN
Well, we did warn you.
Once bitten, forever shy
The problem was, and is, not who to vote against but who to vote for.
However terrible Labour have been with the unforced and avoidable errors there is no possibility for most Tory deserters that, looking back, they should have voted Tory.
If a collective mind exists (ask Jung) then the conclusion from the July result might be:
1) Tories are finished forever unless.. 2) In July 2024 we needed a government that could steer the country without the contortions of a coalition 3) Only Labour could be that 4) A tiny % vote for Labour meant they are on trial, and had better be as brilliant as we hope because they could be finished one day as well... 5) There is a centre left party with seats and a right wing 'Alternative fur Vereinigtes Königreich' called Reform with votes neither of whom are top of the bill at the moment but would like to be, and the voter can deliver that if they like.
Psephologically there won't be a dull moment.
As it stands I will vote Reform next time, unless the Tories can pull themselves together under a good leader
But then that presumes I am still in the country to vote, which is really quite unlikely
Unless you are registered to vote in a seat where Reform are 1st or second to Labour, then a vote for Reform is a wasted vote under FPTP in terms of getting rid of this Labour government
This may of course be right, but the world changes and may change again.
Two points. In the 1970 election I attended an Enfield (Southgate) hustings where the audience had a good laugh at the Labour candidate - who was certain to lose - who said that one day the seat would go Labour. I was 'up for Portillo' when it happened, pre boundary changes. It's now dead safe Labour (though boundary changes).
Take Chichester. With the Tory 35 point lead in 2019 it would be fair to say that any vote but Tory was a mere token gesture. In 2024 the LDs won by a mile with a 30 point swing.
A change is really possible in a circumstance unique in my lifetime: Where both Tories and Labour could be just deeply unpopular, uncool, and out of fashion. We are not there yet, but to everyone's surprise, Labour are trying their hardest to emulate the Tories on that journey whose destination is a GE with LD v Reform being top of the bill.
Yes but Labour were second in 1970 and 1992 in Enfield Southgate so it doesn't really change my point.
The LDs were second in 2019 in Chichester as well.
As I said earlier unless the LDs can start to appeal beyond middle class voters to working class voters and Reform appeal beyond white working class voters to middle class voters neither will have any hope of replacing Labour or the Tories anytime soon
I agree. For something to change something has to change. My point is that we are at a moment where a set of changes could occur based on the vulnerability of both Labour and Tory simultaneously. I think their joint fragility is a new thing.
I don't say it will happen. But it is among the possibles. And both Tories and Labour are helping the process at the moment. Which is inexplicable.
This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"
Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!
All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same
What a shower
It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history
Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
No.
It’s because if you make something a policy plank, you will be judged by your own policy.
Also you can get away with a bit of self enrichment if everybody else feels they are doing well e.g Blair / Mandy. When you tell everybody well sorry times are tough, everything is in the shitter, all your taxes are going up, benefits been cut, nothing I can do..sorry i must go now i have tickets to private box at spurs...it doesn't go down well.
Yes, andyou can actually add it up
Bridget P's free Swift tickets cost £700, so that's two and a bit dead and frozen grannies, so she can go see Taylor Swiift because "that bribe was hard to turn down"
Starmer's £8,000 Arsenal box is 29 frozen dead grans, with maybe another losing a leg to hypothermia, because "fair do's everyone will understand that I need that luxury private box and I shouldn't pay for it"
Michelle Mone's £100m for unusable PPE, actually out of taxpayer funds not from a donor, is 250,000 dead grannies... They're guilty of taking some free hospitality, which they've declared but it doesn't look good because they might be influenced. They've not got fingers in the taxpayers' till past their armpit to the tune of 100s of £milliions like the Conservatives
This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"
Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!
All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same
What a shower
It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history
Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?
It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the right, has no such bar to leap.
We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is made now. Different standards, higher for the Left.
No. It’s about their respective, publicly held beliefs.
Alan Sugar wants very much to be Big Business Tycoon. So having a helicopter is entirely in line with what he sells himself as. He’s not being hypocritical.
If you sell yourself as a Working Class Man Of The People, private helicopters are hypocritical.
You again make my point. Being left wing and at the same time enjoying a luxurious lifestyle is deemed by many (eg you here) as "hypocrisy". This is applying different (higher) standards to such people.
And you miss the point again.
For example, there are numerous examples of people who proclaim “Dog eat Dog Capitalism”. And then get ridiculed for buying government contracts by the yard and renting politicians to do it.
It is about applying *your own, self proclaimed, standards, to yourself*.
I don't go around missing points. C'mon.
What are the "self proclaimed standards" that a progressive is flouting by enjoying an affluent lifestyle?
What is the term "Champagne Socialist" getting at?
Dont you think a new asylum centre in Hampstead would be a good idea. Perhaps near the Heath so you could enjoy the diversity on your walks.
Hampstead Town actually has a Conservative councillor still, one of only 3 Tory councillors on Camden council now
This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"
Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!
All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same
What a shower
It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history
Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?
It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the reactionary right, has no such bar to leap.
We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is now made. Different standards, higher for the Left.
It’s not about left and right, it’s about living the life you preach.
If you go on about climate change being a massive emergency that requires us all to make huge changes to how we live - but turn up in a private plane to do so, then expect to be called out on the hypocracy.
If you’re cutting benefits to OAPs who live on £900 a month, but take £900 tickets to football matches and pop concerts for yourself and your family, then don’t be surprised when you’re called out on that as well.
Ok. But I bet you sometimes use the term "Champagne Socialist" (or similar) to imply a person on the Left with an extravagant lifestyle is a hypocrite and a phony. And if you don't, lots do.
That is doing what I'm talking about - holding people on the Left to a different and higher standard. Expecting them, because of their left wing views, to live a more disciplined austere life.
People are not seriously disputing this, surely.
Expecting them, because of their left wing views, to live a more disciplined austere life.
It's called practice what you preach and it applies to all parties,
People on the left do not generally preach that. Some do, and if pungent terms like Champagne Socialist were only applied to them, fine. But such is not the case. It's become a trope used to smear anyone on the Left with the temerity to have succeeded in our capitalist society. Witness Barry Gardiner if he were to buy a helicopter. That's just an example. I realize he hasn't but that's the point. Even if he could afford it he wouldn't dare because of the backlash.
This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"
Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!
All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same
What a shower
It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history
Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?
It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the right, has no such bar to leap.
We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is made now. Different standards, higher for the Left.
No. It’s about their respective, publicly held beliefs.
Alan Sugar wants very much to be Big Business Tycoon. So having a helicopter is entirely in line with what he sells himself as. He’s not being hypocritical.
If you sell yourself as a Working Class Man Of The People, private helicopters are hypocritical.
You again make my point. Being left wing and at the same time enjoying a luxurious lifestyle is deemed by many (eg you here) as "hypocrisy". This is applying different (higher) standards to such people.
And you miss the point again.
For example, there are numerous examples of people who proclaim “Dog eat Dog Capitalism”. And then get ridiculed for buying government contracts by the yard and renting politicians to do it.
It is about applying *your own, self proclaimed, standards, to yourself*.
I don't go around missing points. C'mon.
What are the "self proclaimed standards" that a progressive is flouting by enjoying an affluent lifestyle?
What is the term "Champagne Socialist" getting at?
Nobody should have champagne until everyone can have champagne
From each according to his ability to each according to his needs. Nobody needs champagne
Now I'm listening to Michelle Shocked's "Come a Long Way"
Ya gotta mix it up. Shel Shocked is one of the great neglected talents of the 1980s-90s
Her song Anchorage has been a favourite of mine since a girl put it on a mixtape for me when I was 16. Don’t know why she put it on as not romantic but glad she did.
Anchorage is one of my favourite songs of all time! Deffo in my top 100, maybe top 50
"Hey Chelle, we was wild then"
One of the greatest ever songs about Friendship, and the life and death of Friendship, and the mediocirty of most lives, and the passing of time. Terribly sad... yet also somehow uplifting?
This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"
Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!
All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same
What a shower
It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history
Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
And to think I loaned my vote to that girning, squirming, midwit, piggy-eyed hypocritical twat-of-all-twats, Skyr Toolmakersson
NEVER AGAIN
Well, we did warn you.
Once bitten, forever shy
The problem was, and is, not who to vote against but who to vote for.
However terrible Labour have been with the unforced and avoidable errors there is no possibility for most Tory deserters that, looking back, they should have voted Tory.
If a collective mind exists (ask Jung) then the conclusion from the July result might be:
1) Tories are finished forever unless.. 2) In July 2024 we needed a government that could steer the country without the contortions of a coalition 3) Only Labour could be that 4) A tiny % vote for Labour meant they are on trial, and had better be as brilliant as we hope because they could be finished one day as well... 5) There is a centre left party with seats and a right wing 'Alternative fur Vereinigtes Königreich' called Reform with votes neither of whom are top of the bill at the moment but would like to be, and the voter can deliver that if they like.
Psephologically there won't be a dull moment.
As it stands I will vote Reform next time, unless the Tories can pull themselves together under a good leader
But then that presumes I am still in the country to vote, which is really quite unlikely
Unless you are registered to vote in a seat where Reform are 1st or second to Labour, then a vote for Reform is a wasted vote under FPTP in terms of getting rid of this Labour government
This may of course be right, but the world changes and may change again.
Two points. In the 1970 election I attended an Enfield (Southgate) hustings where the audience had a good laugh at the Labour candidate - who was certain to lose - who said that one day the seat would go Labour. I was 'up for Portillo' when it happened, pre boundary changes. It's now dead safe Labour (though boundary changes).
Take Chichester. With the Tory 35 point lead in 2019 it would be fair to say that any vote but Tory was a mere token gesture. In 2024 the LDs won by a mile with a 30 point swing.
A change is really possible in a circumstance unique in my lifetime: Where both Tories and Labour could be just deeply unpopular, uncool, and out of fashion. We are not there yet, but to everyone's surprise, Labour are trying their hardest to emulate the Tories on that journey whose destination is a GE with LD v Reform being top of the bill.
I have to say that a Reform-LD coalition would probably be the best government of my lifetime. Or if not, certainly the most interesting.
Reform-Tory (or Reform-Labour) coalition would be a nightmare. As would Tory-Labour. Lib-Labour with latter the minor partners could work. Lib-Tory (either way around) worked very well.
Labour-Tory is more likely a government than Reform-LD, the prospect of the former very small, the latter non existent
This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"
Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!
All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same
What a shower
It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history
Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?
It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the right, has no such bar to leap.
We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is made now. Different standards, higher for the Left.
No. It’s about their respective, publicly held beliefs.
Alan Sugar wants very much to be Big Business Tycoon. So having a helicopter is entirely in line with what he sells himself as. He’s not being hypocritical.
If you sell yourself as a Working Class Man Of The People, private helicopters are hypocritical.
You again make my point. Being left wing and at the same time enjoying a luxurious lifestyle is deemed by many (eg you here) as "hypocrisy". This is applying different (higher) standards to such people.
And you miss the point again.
For example, there are numerous examples of people who proclaim “Dog eat Dog Capitalism”. And then get ridiculed for buying government contracts by the yard and renting politicians to do it.
It is about applying *your own, self proclaimed, standards, to yourself*.
I don't go around missing points. C'mon.
What are the "self proclaimed standards" that a progressive is flouting by enjoying an affluent lifestyle?
What is the term "Champagne Socialist" getting at?
Dont you think a new asylum centre in Hampstead would be a good idea. Perhaps near the Heath so you could enjoy the diversity on your walks.
See, you're doing exactly what I'm talking about. This is a cakewalk today, I must say.
This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"
Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!
All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same
What a shower
It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history
Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
And to think I loaned my vote to that girning, squirming, midwit, piggy-eyed hypocritical twat-of-all-twats, Skyr Toolmakersson
NEVER AGAIN
Well, we did warn you.
Once bitten, forever shy
The problem was, and is, not who to vote against but who to vote for.
However terrible Labour have been with the unforced and avoidable errors there is no possibility for most Tory deserters that, looking back, they should have voted Tory.
If a collective mind exists (ask Jung) then the conclusion from the July result might be:
1) Tories are finished forever unless.. 2) In July 2024 we needed a government that could steer the country without the contortions of a coalition 3) Only Labour could be that 4) A tiny % vote for Labour meant they are on trial, and had better be as brilliant as we hope because they could be finished one day as well... 5) There is a centre left party with seats and a right wing 'Alternative fur Vereinigtes Königreich' called Reform with votes neither of whom are top of the bill at the moment but would like to be, and the voter can deliver that if they like.
Psephologically there won't be a dull moment.
As it stands I will vote Reform next time, unless the Tories can pull themselves together under a good leader
But then that presumes I am still in the country to vote, which is really quite unlikely
Unless you are registered to vote in a seat where Reform are 1st or second to Labour, then a vote for Reform is a wasted vote under FPTP in terms of getting rid of this Labour government
This may of course be right, but the world changes and may change again.
Two points. In the 1970 election I attended an Enfield (Southgate) hustings where the audience had a good laugh at the Labour candidate - who was certain to lose - who said that one day the seat would go Labour. I was 'up for Portillo' when it happened, pre boundary changes. It's now dead safe Labour (though boundary changes).
Take Chichester. With the Tory 35 point lead in 2019 it would be fair to say that any vote but Tory was a mere token gesture. In 2024 the LDs won by a mile with a 30 point swing.
A change is really possible in a circumstance unique in my lifetime: Where both Tories and Labour could be just deeply unpopular, uncool, and out of fashion. We are not there yet, but to everyone's surprise, Labour are trying their hardest to emulate the Tories on that journey whose destination is a GE with LD v Reform being top of the bill.
One of the big surprises in 1997 was Castle Point going Labour, due to a feud between the Conservative candidate and a significant part of the local party. He ate humble pie afterwards and the seat has been it's natural Conservative self ever since.
Again, Labour were second in Castle Point in 1992
16.800 behind, and third in the previous two elections. No-one was more surprised than the Labour candidate in 1997, too. Nice lady.
This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"
Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!
All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same
What a shower
It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history
Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?
It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the reactionary right, has no such bar to leap.
We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is now made. Different standards, higher for the Left.
It’s not about left and right, it’s about living the life you preach.
If you go on about climate change being a massive emergency that requires us all to make huge changes to how we live - but turn up in a private plane to do so, then expect to be called out on the hypocracy.
If you’re cutting benefits to OAPs who live on £900 a month, but take £900 tickets to football matches and pop concerts for yourself and your family, then don’t be surprised when you’re called out on that as well.
Ok. But I bet you sometimes use the term "Champagne Socialist" (or similar) to imply a person on the Left with an extravagant lifestyle is a hypocrite and a phony. And if you don't, lots do.
That is doing what I'm talking about - holding people on the Left to a different and higher standard. Expecting them, because of their left wing views, to live a more disciplined austere life.
People are not seriously disputing this, surely.
Expecting them, because of their left wing views, to live a more disciplined austere life.
It's called practice what you preach and it applies to all parties,
People on the left do not generally preach that. Some do, and if pungent terms like Champagne Socialist were only applied to them, fine. But such is not the case. It's become a trope used to smear anyone on the Left with the temerity to have succeeded in our capitalist society. Witness Barry Gardiner if he were to buy a helicopter. That's just an example. I realize he hasn't. But that's the point. Even if he could afford it he wouldn't dare because of the backlash.
Utter tosh. Most of the moral preaching comes from the Left who somehow think they are morally superior to the rest of us. Labour is a moral crusade or it is nothing - Harold Wislson. Labours preachy morality is a hangover from the methodist days. In those days there were people who put principle before personal interest. These days they are few and far between. It just the self-righteous middle class lefties telling everyone else what to do.
Now I'm listening to Michelle Shocked's "Come a Long Way"
Ya gotta mix it up. Shel Shocked is one of the great neglected talents of the 1980s-90s
Her song Anchorage has been a favourite of mine since a girl put it on a mixtape for me when I was 16. Don’t know why she put it on as not romantic but glad she did.
Anchorage is one of my favourite songs of all time! Deffo in my top 100, maybe top 50
"Hey Chelle, we was wild then"
One of the greatest ever songs about Friendship, and the life and death of Friendship, and the mediocirty of most lives, and the passing of time. Terribly sad... yet also somehow uplifting?
This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"
Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!
All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same
What a shower
It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history
Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?
It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the reactionary right, has no such bar to leap.
We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is now made. Different standards, higher for the Left.
It’s not about left and right, it’s about living the life you preach.
If you go on about climate change being a massive emergency that requires us all to make huge changes to how we live - but turn up in a private plane to do so, then expect to be called out on the hypocracy.
If you’re cutting benefits to OAPs who live on £900 a month, but take £900 tickets to football matches and pop concerts for yourself and your family, then don’t be surprised when you’re called out on that as well.
Ok. But I bet you sometimes use the term "Champagne Socialist" (or similar) to imply a person on the Left with an extravagant lifestyle is a hypocrite and a phony. And if you don't, lots do.
That is doing what I'm talking about - holding people on the Left to a different and higher standard. Expecting them, because of their left wing views, to live a more disciplined austere life.
People are not seriously disputing this, surely.
Expecting them, because of their left wing views, to live a more disciplined austere life.
It's called practice what you preach and it applies to all parties,
People on the left do not generally preach that. Some do, and if pungent terms like Champagne Socialist were only applied to them, fine. But such is not the case. It's become a trope used to smear anyone on the Left with the temerity to have succeeded in our capitalist society. Witness Barry Gardiner if he were to buy a helicopter. That's just an example. I realize he hasn't. But that's the point. Even if he could afford it he wouldn't dare because of the backlash.
In my view, anyone who can afford to buy a helicopter probably has too much money, regardless of their politics. I just don't understand why politicians of all stripes think it's fine to accept freebies, some costing thousands of pounds. The phrase "no such thing as a free lunch" should instantly come to mind, especially if you're an MP and definitely if you're a cabinet minister or PM. I know it's gone on for ever, but I'd like it to stop. It's not jealousy (in the Fire Service we were lucky to get a tin of biscuits or a tin of sweets off a local supermarket at Christmas between us!) I just don't understand why the MPs can't see how corrupt it looks.
This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
I don't know - I'm pretty relaxed about it and I suspect her reaction wouldn't be atypical of other parents put in a similar position.
Once again, a whole lot of faux outrage from a party with huge experience of venality and corruption when in Government in the preceding decade or so. Indeed, plenty were happy to defend Johnson in the ditch until the very end but that was fine because it was "good old Boris".
Not true of course and the key point isn't or aren't the gifts themselves but a) what Starmer, Reeves and others said before the election about how they were going to comport themselves once in Government and b) the juxtaposition of ministers going to parties and concerts for free while taking away the winter fuel allowance for pensioners, some of whom admittedly don't need it but many others do and the cliff edge of a claiming process meaning for having as much as £3 too much, you lose £250 which is absurd.
Well, yes, the key is the hypocrisy
Unfortunately for Ms Phillipson, she was one of the most vocal critics of Boris' lockdown parties, when he tried to use the same excuse as her - "actually, it was just a work event"
Oh dear, oh dear
I wonder if part of the problem for Labour is that the Tories have been so chaotic and shite for so long Labour have not received anything like enough press scrutiny, so Labour are
1. Totally unused to criticism and interrogation and thrown by it when it happens, and
2. Have developed a feeling that people don't mind if they do dodgy stuff, as no one has complained YET
Oh dear, oh dear
July was a significant vote AGAINST the Conservatives - let's be fair falling from 47% to 26% in England and losing seats like Chichester doesn't speak to a huge vote of support.
You're correct in saying Labour didn't get the kind of pre-election scrutiny in 2024 that Kinnock for example got in 1992. Even normally pro-Conservative individuals found it impossible to defend what had happened especially since 2019 - there were a few on here who were in the ditch with Sunak at the end and I've some admiration for that.
Starmer did face criticism after becoming leader - I remember some on here being vociferous when he was pictured taking the knee in apparent support of BLM. The thing was, compared to that minor squall, the Conservatives were getting a daily tornado of vitriol to which they couldn't respond.
I'm not sure who is running the media management in Government now but they aren't doing it well so your 1) is spot on.
As for 2), I'm less convinced. I don't think very much of what I've heard is anywhere "dodgy" but it's the hypocrisy and the juxtaposition with how the Govenrment is perceived to be treating pensioners which makes the whole thing look bad.
It’s utterly utterly dodgy
There is a reason why gifts and corporate entertainment are closely monitored and controlled in the private sector.
Ministers have the power to make decisions that affect millions. They should not only be incorruptible but they need to be seen to be incorruptible.
How come some art forms can be enjoyed again and again - yet others are consumed once and that’s it?
I don’t reread novels. The only novel I have ever read twice is Joyce’s Ulysses, it’s the only one good enough to be read more than once
Yet I will reread favourite poems multiple times
I don’t rewatch plays. Once and that’s it. Yet I will look at a favourite painting quite a lot
I seldom rewatch tv or movies. Maybe twice if they’re really good
Yet a fantastic piece of music is indestructibly repeatable. I can listen to Strauss’ Im Abendrot or Michelle Shocked’s Anchorage again and again and again without loss of joy. The joy maybe grows
Thanks. OTOH I should think anyone from a completely alien culture encountering Howell's Collegium Regale sung by a decent English choir (St John's Cambridge and Andrew Nethsingha attached below!) would be similarly awestruck. We get used to it and take it for granted because it is so English, but suppose you had never met this before, especially the Gloria:
I like Howells, but it is too polished and sweet to have the power of that Aramaic liturgy, which really sounds like a beautiful wail of helpless worship from some cave-church in the Jordanian desert, music which is painful in its adoration like John Updike's description of an aroused vagina being "helpless in its own nectar"
Point taken, try the Messe de Tournai or the 'Sederunt Principes' of Perotinus Magnus for etherial but rougher wailing in the western tradition. BTW are you lapsing into what they call an AI hallucination?
This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"
Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!
All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same
What a shower
It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history
Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?
It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the right, has no such bar to leap.
We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is made now. Different standards, higher for the Left.
No. It’s about their respective, publicly held beliefs.
Alan Sugar wants very much to be Big Business Tycoon. So having a helicopter is entirely in line with what he sells himself as. He’s not being hypocritical.
If you sell yourself as a Working Class Man Of The People, private helicopters are hypocritical.
You again make my point. Being left wing and at the same time enjoying a luxurious lifestyle is deemed by many (eg you here) as "hypocrisy". This is applying different (higher) standards to such people.
And you miss the point again.
For example, there are numerous examples of people who proclaim “Dog eat Dog Capitalism”. And then get ridiculed for buying government contracts by the yard and renting politicians to do it.
It is about applying *your own, self proclaimed, standards, to yourself*.
I don't go around missing points. C'mon.
What are the "self proclaimed standards" that a progressive is flouting by enjoying an affluent lifestyle?
What is the term "Champagne Socialist" getting at?
Dont you think a new asylum centre in Hampstead would be a good idea. Perhaps near the Heath so you could enjoy the diversity on your walks.
See, you're doing exactly what I'm talking about. This is a cakewalk today, I must say.
No but you like and are happy with high levels of immigration. So why not do your bit and lobby for an asylum centre near the Heath. Why should it only be the good folks of Barking who suffer the wonders of diversity.
This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"
Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!
All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same
What a shower
It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history
Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?
It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the right, has no such bar to leap.
We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is made now. Different standards, higher for the Left.
No. It’s about their respective, publicly held beliefs.
Alan Sugar wants very much to be Big Business Tycoon. So having a helicopter is entirely in line with what he sells himself as. He’s not being hypocritical.
If you sell yourself as a Working Class Man Of The People, private helicopters are hypocritical.
You again make my point. Being left wing and at the same time enjoying a luxurious lifestyle is deemed by many (eg you here) as "hypocrisy". This is applying different (higher) standards to such people.
And you miss the point again.
For example, there are numerous examples of people who proclaim “Dog eat Dog Capitalism”. And then get ridiculed for buying government contracts by the yard and renting politicians to do it.
It is about applying *your own, self proclaimed, standards, to yourself*.
I don't go around missing points. C'mon.
What are the "self proclaimed standards" that a progressive is flouting by enjoying an affluent lifestyle?
What is the term "Champagne Socialist" getting at?
The classic of the genre was the U.K. Communist Party, which was largely funded by rent on property they owned, for many years.
We have a recent example of a Labour MP who is a semi-slum lord. And campaigned against landlords.
Sure. Some genuine hypocrisy on the Left there. Nobody's saying there isn't any. Course there is. But I'm talking about all those wealthy lefties (the vast majority) who simply enjoy an affluent lifestyle and don't tell others how to live. What is "Champagne Socialist" (and the like) getting at when applied (as it so often is) to these people? You tell me.
This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"
Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!
All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same
What a shower
It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history
Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?
It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the reactionary right, has no such bar to leap.
We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is now made. Different standards, higher for the Left.
Alan Sugar is an odd example of someone who never attracts criticism or mockery. Hard to quantify, but my bet would be that the amount of criticism and mockery aimed at Alan Sugar comfortably exceeds that of Barry Gardiner, of whom few people have heard. Dave Gorman has essentially made a career out of mocking Alan Sugar.
Ok. Let's not get too literal though. Replace with Simon Cowell if that helps the point. Not on the Left, can buy a helicopter and nobody bats an eyelid. Barry Gardiner does it, all hell breaks out.
Well again, I'd say Simon Cowell gets rather more muck thrown at him than Barry Gardiner. Hang on, wasn't Barry Gardiner an actual Chinese spy? Surely we have bigger problems with him than helicoptery.
This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
I don't know - I'm pretty relaxed about it and I suspect her reaction wouldn't be atypical of other parents put in a similar position.
Once again, a whole lot of faux outrage from a party with huge experience of venality and corruption when in Government in the preceding decade or so. Indeed, plenty were happy to defend Johnson in the ditch until the very end but that was fine because it was "good old Boris".
Not true of course and the key point isn't or aren't the gifts themselves but a) what Starmer, Reeves and others said before the election about how they were going to comport themselves once in Government and b) the juxtaposition of ministers going to parties and concerts for free while taking away the winter fuel allowance for pensioners, some of whom admittedly don't need it but many others do and the cliff edge of a claiming process meaning for having as much as £3 too much, you lose £250 which is absurd.
Well, yes, the key is the hypocrisy
Unfortunately for Ms Phillipson, she was one of the most vocal critics of Boris' lockdown parties, when he tried to use the same excuse as her - "actually, it was just a work event"
Oh dear, oh dear
I wonder if part of the problem for Labour is that the Tories have been so chaotic and shite for so long Labour have not received anything like enough press scrutiny, so Labour are
1. Totally unused to criticism and interrogation and thrown by it when it happens, and
2. Have developed a feeling that people don't mind if they do dodgy stuff, as no one has complained YET
Oh dear, oh dear
July was a significant vote AGAINST the Conservatives - let's be fair falling from 47% to 26% in England and losing seats like Chichester doesn't speak to a huge vote of support.
You're correct in saying Labour didn't get the kind of pre-election scrutiny in 2024 that Kinnock for example got in 1992. Even normally pro-Conservative individuals found it impossible to defend what had happened especially since 2019 - there were a few on here who were in the ditch with Sunak at the end and I've some admiration for that.
Starmer did face criticism after becoming leader - I remember some on here being vociferous when he was pictured taking the knee in apparent support of BLM. The thing was, compared to that minor squall, the Conservatives were getting a daily tornado of vitriol to which they couldn't respond.
I'm not sure who is running the media management in Government now but they aren't doing it well so your 1) is spot on.
As for 2), I'm less convinced. I don't think very much of what I've heard is anywhere "dodgy" but it's the hypocrisy and the juxtaposition with how the Govenrment is perceived to be treating pensioners which makes the whole thing look bad.
It’s utterly utterly dodgy
There is a reason why gifts and corporate entertainment are closely monitored and controlled in the private sector.
Ministers have the power to make decisions that affect millions. They should not only be incorruptible but they need to be seen to be incorruptible.
Now I'm listening to Michelle Shocked's "Come a Long Way"
Ya gotta mix it up. Shel Shocked is one of the great neglected talents of the 1980s-90s
Her song Anchorage has been a favourite of mine since a girl put it on a mixtape for me when I was 16. Don’t know why she put it on as not romantic but glad she did.
Anchorage is one of my favourite songs of all time! Deffo in my top 100, maybe top 50
"Hey Chelle, we was wild then"
One of the greatest ever songs about Friendship, and the life and death of Friendship, and the mediocirty of most lives, and the passing of time. Terribly sad... yet also somehow uplifting?
See, I'm listening to Im Abendrot right now (I just did Anchorage) and it's probably the 94th time I have heard it and I am softly swaying as Kiri Te Kanawa hits the high notes and closing my eyes and thinking "OMG that's lovely", I don't pick up a Dickens novel and read it for the 94th time and think "hahaha that's great characterisation", or "what a turn of phrase", I would vomit if I had to read it 94 times, or even twice, or maybe even once most of Dickens is shite
How come some art forms can be enjoyed again and again - yet others are consumed once and that’s it?
I don’t reread novels. The only novel I have ever read twice is Joyce’s Ulysses, it’s the only one good enough to be read more than once
Yet I will reread favourite poems multiple times
I don’t rewatch plays. Once and that’s it. Yet I will look at a favourite painting quite a lot
I seldom rewatch tv or movies. Maybe twice if they’re really good
Yet a fantastic piece of music is indestructibly repeatable. I can listen to Strauss’ Im Abendrot or Michelle Shocked’s Anchorage again and again and again without loss of joy. The joy maybe grows
Why?
Brain wiring. Words don't work on repeat so much as images or music (which has a mathematical quality that always delivers a certain "A'ha!")
How come some art forms can be enjoyed again and again - yet others are consumed once and that’s it?
I don’t reread novels. The only novel I have ever read twice is Joyce’s Ulysses, it’s the only one good enough to be read more than once
Yet I will reread favourite poems multiple times
I don’t rewatch plays. Once and that’s it. Yet I will look at a favourite painting quite a lot
I seldom rewatch tv or movies. Maybe twice if they’re really good
Yet a fantastic piece of music is indestructibly repeatable. I can listen to Strauss’ Im Abendrot or Michelle Shocked’s Anchorage again and again and again without loss of joy. The joy maybe grows
Why?
10 Novels to read more than once: Bleak House, Wuthering Heights, Dance to the Music of Time, Dubliners (The Dead is a novella so it counts), The Masters, Phineas Finn, Great Expectations, Sinister Street, Emma, The Power and the Glory.
Music to listen to less than once: Haydn's Baryton Trios. Almost everything since the death of Shostakovich.
Otherwise 100% agree.
Reasons for why you are right: ??is to do with how brains work, different forms engage different bits. Some do repetition more than others.
See, I'm listening to Im Abendrot right now (I just did Anchorage) and it's probably the 94th time I have heard it and I am softly swaying as Kiri Te Kanawa hits the high notes and closing my eyes and thinking "OMG that's lovely", I don't pick up a Dickens novel and read it for the 94th time and think "hahaha that's great characterisation", or "what a turn of phrase", I would vomit if I had to read it 94 times, or even twice, or maybe even once most of Dickens is shite
There's plenty of Pratchett I've read and enjoyed multiple times.
How come some art forms can be enjoyed again and again - yet others are consumed once and that’s it?
I don’t reread novels. The only novel I have ever read twice is Joyce’s Ulysses, it’s the only one good enough to be read more than once
Yet I will reread favourite poems multiple times
I don’t rewatch plays. Once and that’s it. Yet I will look at a favourite painting quite a lot
I seldom rewatch tv or movies. Maybe twice if they’re really good
Yet a fantastic piece of music is indestructibly repeatable. I can listen to Strauss’ Im Abendrot or Michelle Shocked’s Anchorage again and again and again without loss of joy. The joy maybe grows
Why?
Something to do with stories vs. not-stories?
We experience plays, books and whatnot in time, one thing after another. Part of the pleasure is not knowing what will happen next, and that's distinctly one-off.
Whereas the time's arrow thing doesn't apply so much to pictures and music- we can go back and encounter new detail each time.
And the sort of narratives that do repay re-reading, comedy say, there's pleasure in knowing what's coming up. There's a joke on the next page and it's coming, you can anticipate it and turn over ha ha ha.
How come some art forms can be enjoyed again and again - yet others are consumed once and that’s it?
I don’t reread novels. The only novel I have ever read twice is Joyce’s Ulysses, it’s the only one good enough to be read more than once
Yet I will reread favourite poems multiple times
I don’t rewatch plays. Once and that’s it. Yet I will look at a favourite painting quite a lot
I seldom rewatch tv or movies. Maybe twice if they’re really good
Yet a fantastic piece of music is indestructibly repeatable. I can listen to Strauss’ Im Abendrot or Michelle Shocked’s Anchorage again and again and again without loss of joy. The joy maybe grows
Why?
I noticed that as well, different types of art are either something to be experienced once or something to be experienced many times.
If you go and see a band, you want to hear their hits, the songs you know and have heard many times before. If you go and see the same band next year, you want to hear the same hits. Bands know this, and so often perform their old songs as well as their new album. Bands that just play new stuff get badly reviewed.
Yet if you go and see a comedian, you usually expect a totally different show from last year, you want to hear their new jokes and not their old jokes.
How come some art forms can be enjoyed again and again - yet others are consumed once and that’s it?
I don’t reread novels. The only novel I have ever read twice is Joyce’s Ulysses, it’s the only one good enough to be read more than once
Yet I will reread favourite poems multiple times
I don’t rewatch plays. Once and that’s it. Yet I will look at a favourite painting quite a lot
I seldom rewatch tv or movies. Maybe twice if they’re really good
Yet a fantastic piece of music is indestructibly repeatable. I can listen to Strauss’ Im Abendrot or Michelle Shocked’s Anchorage again and again and again without loss of joy. The joy maybe grows
Why?
Brain wiring. Words don't work on repeat so much as images or music (which has a mathematical quality that always delivers a certain "A'ha!")
Maybe.
Possibly
However, I suspect it is more this: art which delivers a story - novels, drama, movies, TV - can only deliver that once. When you've heard the story - got the crucial info - you are evolved to move on to something which will provide more or different information. You can't waste time hearing the same shit
But poems, songs, paintings do NOT tell a story. All you have is the aesthetic pleasure, which can be enjoyed again and again
Notable that Ulysses does NOT (notoriously) tell a story. It is just the aesthetic pleasure of the words and word-play
This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"
Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!
All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same
What a shower
It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history
Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
No.
It’s because if you make something a policy plank, you will be judged by your own policy.
Also you can get away with a bit of self enrichment if everybody else feels they are doing well e.g Blair / Mandy. When you tell everybody well sorry times are tough, everything is in the shitter, all your taxes are going up, benefits been cut, nothing I can do..sorry i must go now i have tickets to private box at spurs...it doesn't go down well.
Yes, andyou can actually add it up
Bridget P's free Swift tickets cost £700, so that's two and a bit dead and frozen grannies, so she can go see Taylor Swiift because "that bribe was hard to turn down"
Starmer's £8,000 Arsenal box is 29 frozen dead grans, with maybe another losing a leg to hypothermia, because "fair do's everyone will understand that I need that luxury private box and I shouldn't pay for it"
Michelle Mone's £100m for unusable PPE, actually out of taxpayer funds not from a donor, is 250,000 dead grannies... They're guilty of taking some free hospitality, which they've declared but it doesn't look good because they might be influenced. They've not got fingers in the taxpayers' till past their armpit to the tune of 100s of £milliions like the Conservatives
In a marginal defence of the last government, AFAIK, they didn’t benefit *personally* from Mone and others.
They put in place a fast track during an unprecedented situation. They referred people to that fast track who, it is alleged, turned out to be shysters.
So they are guilty of weakening normal controls. Forgivable.
They are guilty of knowing and recommending shysters. That’s poor judgement and worthy of criticism.
But I don’t think they are guilty of fraud or grifting in these cases
How come some art forms can be enjoyed again and again - yet others are consumed once and that’s it?
I don’t reread novels. The only novel I have ever read twice is Joyce’s Ulysses, it’s the only one good enough to be read more than once
Yet I will reread favourite poems multiple times
I don’t rewatch plays. Once and that’s it. Yet I will look at a favourite painting quite a lot
I seldom rewatch tv or movies. Maybe twice if they’re really good
Yet a fantastic piece of music is indestructibly repeatable. I can listen to Strauss’ Im Abendrot or Michelle Shocked’s Anchorage again and again and again without loss of joy. The joy maybe grows
Why?
Brain wiring. Words don't work on repeat so much as images or music (which has a mathematical quality that always delivers a certain "A'ha!")
Maybe.
The novel is a very time consuming art form to consume. I could listen to over 100 pop songs in the time it takes me to read one novel.
How come some art forms can be enjoyed again and again - yet others are consumed once and that’s it?
I don’t reread novels. The only novel I have ever read twice is Joyce’s Ulysses, it’s the only one good enough to be read more than once
Yet I will reread favourite poems multiple times
I don’t rewatch plays. Once and that’s it. Yet I will look at a favourite painting quite a lot
I seldom rewatch tv or movies. Maybe twice if they’re really good
Yet a fantastic piece of music is indestructibly repeatable. I can listen to Strauss’ Im Abendrot or Michelle Shocked’s Anchorage again and again and again without loss of joy. The joy maybe grows
Why?
Something to do with stories vs. not-stories?
We experience plays, books and whatnot in time, one thing after another. Part of the pleasure is not knowing what will happen next, and that's distinctly one-off.
Whereas the time's arrow thing doesn't apply so much to pictures and music- we can go back and encounter new detail each time.
And the sort of narratives that do repay re-reading, comedy say, there's pleasure in knowing what's coming up. There's a joke on the next page and it's coming, you can anticipate it and turn over ha ha ha.
Wonderful paintings can tell stories. Maybe of your own creation, but they can still be vivid.
How come some art forms can be enjoyed again and again - yet others are consumed once and that’s it?
I don’t reread novels. The only novel I have ever read twice is Joyce’s Ulysses, it’s the only one good enough to be read more than once
Yet I will reread favourite poems multiple times
I don’t rewatch plays. Once and that’s it. Yet I will look at a favourite painting quite a lot
I seldom rewatch tv or movies. Maybe twice if they’re really good
Yet a fantastic piece of music is indestructibly repeatable. I can listen to Strauss’ Im Abendrot or Michelle Shocked’s Anchorage again and again and again without loss of joy. The joy maybe grows
Why?
Brain wiring. Words don't work on repeat so much as images or music (which has a mathematical quality that always delivers a certain "A'ha!")
Maybe.
Possibly
However, I suspect it is more this: art which delivers a story - novels, drama, movies, TV - can only deliver that once. When you've heard the story - got the crucial info - you are evolved to move on to something which will provide more or different information. You can't waste time hearing the same shit
But poems, songs, paintings do NOT tell a story. All you have is the aesthetic pleasure, which can be enjoyed again and again
Notable that Ulysses does NOT (notoriously) tell a story. It is just the aesthetic pleasure of the words and word-play
What I enjoy most about Pratchett is language and wordplay. That, and his love for the landscape of the Wolds which drips from the pages of the Tiffany Aching books. So yes.
This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"
Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!
All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same
What a shower
It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history
Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?
It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the reactionary right, has no such bar to leap.
We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is now made. Different standards, higher for the Left.
It’s not about left and right, it’s about living the life you preach.
If you go on about climate change being a massive emergency that requires us all to make huge changes to how we live - but turn up in a private plane to do so, then expect to be called out on the hypocracy.
If you’re cutting benefits to OAPs who live on £900 a month, but take £900 tickets to football matches and pop concerts for yourself and your family, then don’t be surprised when you’re called out on that as well.
Ok. But I bet you sometimes use the term "Champagne Socialist" (or similar) to imply a person on the Left with an extravagant lifestyle is a hypocrite and a phony. And if you don't, lots do.
That is doing what I'm talking about - holding people on the Left to a different and higher standard. Expecting them, because of their left wing views, to live a more disciplined austere life.
People are not seriously disputing this, surely.
Expecting them, because of their left wing views, to live a more disciplined austere life.
It's called practice what you preach and it applies to all parties,
People on the left do not generally preach that. Some do, and if pungent terms like Champagne Socialist were only applied to them, fine. But such is not the case. It's become a trope used to smear anyone on the Left with the temerity to have succeeded in our capitalist society. Witness Barry Gardiner if he were to buy a helicopter. That's just an example. I realize he hasn't. But that's the point. Even if he could afford it he wouldn't dare because of the backlash.
Utter tosh. Most of the moral preaching comes from the Left who somehow think they are morally superior to the rest of us. Labour is a moral crusade or it is nothing - Harold Wislson. Labours preachy morality is a hangover from the methodist days. In those days there were people who put principle before personal interest. These days they are few and far between. It just the self-righteous middle class lefties telling everyone else what to do.
There's tons of preaching from the Right. Traditional values, get on your bike, self-reliance, charity begins at home, abortion is murder, etc etc.
But that's besides the point - this specific point about money and lifestyle.
Q: Is a wealthy progressive just by dint of being wealthy more likely to be called a hypocrite/phony than a wealthy reactionary?
Yes. We see it all the time. Seen it a few times on this very thread. C'mon, you have to concede a point sometimes. It strengthens a person to do that.
Thanks. OTOH I should think anyone from a completely alien culture encountering Howell's Collegium Regale sung by a decent English choir (St John's Cambridge and Andrew Nethsingha attached below!) would be similarly awestruck. We get used to it and take it for granted because it is so English, but suppose you had never met this before, especially the Gloria:
This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"
Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!
All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same
What a shower
It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history
Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
No.
It’s because if you make something a policy plank, you will be judged by your own policy.
Also you can get away with a bit of self enrichment if everybody else feels they are doing well e.g Blair / Mandy. When you tell everybody well sorry times are tough, everything is in the shitter, all your taxes are going up, benefits been cut, nothing I can do..sorry i must go now i have tickets to private box at spurs...it doesn't go down well.
Yes, andyou can actually add it up
Bridget P's free Swift tickets cost £700, so that's two and a bit dead and frozen grannies, so she can go see Taylor Swiift because "that bribe was hard to turn down"
Starmer's £8,000 Arsenal box is 29 frozen dead grans, with maybe another losing a leg to hypothermia, because "fair do's everyone will understand that I need that luxury private box and I shouldn't pay for it"
Michelle Mone's £100m for unusable PPE, actually out of taxpayer funds not from a donor, is 250,000 dead grannies... They're guilty of taking some free hospitality, which they've declared but it doesn't look good because they might be influenced. They've not got fingers in the taxpayers' till past their armpit to the tune of 100s of £milliions like the Conservatives
In a marginal defence of the last government, AFAIK, they didn’t benefit *personally* from Mone and others.
They put in place a fast track during an unprecedented situation. They referred people to that fast track who, it is alleged, turned out to be shysters.
So they are guilty of weakening normal controls. Forgivable.
They are guilty of knowing and recommending shysters. That’s poor judgement and worthy of criticism.
But I don’t think they are guilty of fraud or grifting in these cases
Don't forget, Labour were insisting the Goverment entered into certain contracts to get PPE.
They now conveniently forget those contracts would, er, not have delivered PPE.
This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"
Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!
All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same
What a shower
It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history
Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?
It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the reactionary right, has no such bar to leap.
We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is now made. Different standards, higher for the Left.
Alan Sugar is an odd example of someone who never attracts criticism or mockery. Hard to quantify, but my bet would be that the amount of criticism and mockery aimed at Alan Sugar comfortably exceeds that of Barry Gardiner, of whom few people have heard. Dave Gorman has essentially made a career out of mocking Alan Sugar.
Ok. Let's not get too literal though. Replace with Simon Cowell if that helps the point. Not on the Left, can buy a helicopter and nobody bats an eyelid. Barry Gardiner does it, all hell breaks out.
Well again, I'd say Simon Cowell gets rather more muck thrown at him than Barry Gardiner. Hang on, wasn't Barry Gardiner an actual Chinese spy? Surely we have bigger problems with him than helicoptery.
Oh ffs. Ok, not Barry Gardiner then.
Ronan Keating and Lisa Nandy. Keating buys a helicopter, no drama. Nandy buys one - never hears the end of it.
Can we move on now with the general point agreed as made?
How come some art forms can be enjoyed again and again - yet others are consumed once and that’s it?
I don’t reread novels. The only novel I have ever read twice is Joyce’s Ulysses, it’s the only one good enough to be read more than once
Yet I will reread favourite poems multiple times
I don’t rewatch plays. Once and that’s it. Yet I will look at a favourite painting quite a lot
I seldom rewatch tv or movies. Maybe twice if they’re really good
Yet a fantastic piece of music is indestructibly repeatable. I can listen to Strauss’ Im Abendrot or Michelle Shocked’s Anchorage again and again and again without loss of joy. The joy maybe grows
Why?
Brain wiring. Words don't work on repeat so much as images or music (which has a mathematical quality that always delivers a certain "A'ha!")
Maybe.
Possibly
However, I suspect it is more this: art which delivers a story - novels, drama, movies, TV - can only deliver that once. When you've heard the story - got the crucial info - you are evolved to move on to something which will provide more or different information. You can't waste time hearing the same shit
But poems, songs, paintings do NOT tell a story. All you have is the aesthetic pleasure, which can be enjoyed again and again
Notable that Ulysses does NOT (notoriously) tell a story. It is just the aesthetic pleasure of the words and word-play
I have the fortunate in some ways disability that I can never remember anything about a novel. At all. I have read War and Peace half a dozen times. Starts at a party in St Petersburg (or Moscow?), there's battles, pretty sure she ends up with Pierre. That's it. Which means I can read it again not just for finer points, but to find out what happens.
How come some art forms can be enjoyed again and again - yet others are consumed once and that’s it?
I don’t reread novels. The only novel I have ever read twice is Joyce’s Ulysses, it’s the only one good enough to be read more than once
Yet I will reread favourite poems multiple times
I don’t rewatch plays. Once and that’s it. Yet I will look at a favourite painting quite a lot
I seldom rewatch tv or movies. Maybe twice if they’re really good
Yet a fantastic piece of music is indestructibly repeatable. I can listen to Strauss’ Im Abendrot or Michelle Shocked’s Anchorage again and again and again without loss of joy. The joy maybe grows
Why?
Something to do with stories vs. not-stories?
We experience plays, books and whatnot in time, one thing after another. Part of the pleasure is not knowing what will happen next, and that's distinctly one-off.
Whereas the time's arrow thing doesn't apply so much to pictures and music- we can go back and encounter new detail each time.
And the sort of narratives that do repay re-reading, comedy say, there's pleasure in knowing what's coming up. There's a joke on the next page and it's coming, you can anticipate it and turn over ha ha ha.
Wonderful paintings can tell stories. Maybe of your own creation, but they can still be vivid.
Not really tho
No one looks at a painting coz it tells a story. I know they can do this - medieval paintings famously did - but since the early Renaissance we’ve looked at paintings for their beauty and harmony, the aesthetic noom, the vibe and the statement
How come some art forms can be enjoyed again and again - yet others are consumed once and that’s it?
I don’t reread novels. The only novel I have ever read twice is Joyce’s Ulysses, it’s the only one good enough to be read more than once
Yet I will reread favourite poems multiple times
I don’t rewatch plays. Once and that’s it. Yet I will look at a favourite painting quite a lot
I seldom rewatch tv or movies. Maybe twice if they’re really good
Yet a fantastic piece of music is indestructibly repeatable. I can listen to Strauss’ Im Abendrot or Michelle Shocked’s Anchorage again and again and again without loss of joy. The joy maybe grows
Why?
Brain wiring. Words don't work on repeat so much as images or music (which has a mathematical quality that always delivers a certain "A'ha!")
Maybe.
The novel is a very time consuming art form to consume. I could listen to over 100 pop songs in the time it takes me to read one novel.
Indeed.
I can see people returning to a sonnet over and over again, or lines of a poem, but does anyone read the whole of ‘the Ancient Mariner’ repeatedly or the 3 thousand odd lines of Beowulf ?
It’s not just time - the effort in reading a novel, is hugely more than listening to a pop song. You can also do other tasks simultaneously to listening to music.
Art can have immediate and visceral effects. Hard to think of a novel having the same effect in 30 seconds, to that of seeing Munch’s The Scream or Van Goghs Impressionism.
This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"
Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!
All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same
What a shower
It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history
Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?
It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the reactionary right, has no such bar to leap.
We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is now made. Different standards, higher for the Left.
It’s not about left and right, it’s about living the life you preach.
If you go on about climate change being a massive emergency that requires us all to make huge changes to how we live - but turn up in a private plane to do so, then expect to be called out on the hypocracy.
If you’re cutting benefits to OAPs who live on £900 a month, but take £900 tickets to football matches and pop concerts for yourself and your family, then don’t be surprised when you’re called out on that as well.
Ok. But I bet you sometimes use the term "Champagne Socialist" (or similar) to imply a person on the Left with an extravagant lifestyle is a hypocrite and a phony. And if you don't, lots do.
That is doing what I'm talking about - holding people on the Left to a different and higher standard. Expecting them, because of their left wing views, to live a more disciplined austere life.
People are not seriously disputing this, surely.
Expecting them, because of their left wing views, to live a more disciplined austere life.
It's called practice what you preach and it applies to all parties,
People on the left do not generally preach that. Some do, and if pungent terms like Champagne Socialist were only applied to them, fine. But such is not the case. It's become a trope used to smear anyone on the Left with the temerity to have succeeded in our capitalist society. Witness Barry Gardiner if he were to buy a helicopter. That's just an example. I realize he hasn't. But that's the point. Even if he could afford it he wouldn't dare because of the backlash.
Utter tosh. Most of the moral preaching comes from the Left who somehow think they are morally superior to the rest of us. Labour is a moral crusade or it is nothing - Harold Wislson. Labours preachy morality is a hangover from the methodist days. In those days there were people who put principle before personal interest. These days they are few and far between. It just the self-righteous middle class lefties telling everyone else what to do.
There's tons of preaching from the Right. Traditional values, get on your bike, self-reliance, charity begins at home, abortion is murder, etc etc.
But that's besides the point - this specific point about money and lifestyle.
Q: Is a wealthy progressive just by dint of being wealthy more likely to be called a hypocrite/phony than a wealthy reactionary?
Yes. We see it all the time. Seen it a few times on this very thread. C'mon, you have to concede a point sometimes. It strengthens a person to do that.
Wealthy Righties justifiably get called out too usually with the label of "that rich git". Your issue seems to be you think the Left should get a hospital pass or youre surprised that people might criticise your idols for their moral outbursts.
Why wealthy people think their opinions just must be heard is down to their egos not much else.
The infinite repeatability of great music is surely proof that it is the supreme art form, only really matched by the domestic psychological thriller set on, say, an island or a lonely beach with a female protagonist in her mid 30s and at least one spooky child
It's the sort of vibrancy which Welby and the CoE lack
Pentacostalist worship is certainly fun and celebrational, and in the UK drawing crowds too. There are a number of "Big Shed" churches near me, the retail park being the UK equivalent of the US shopping Mall. It isn't just the African diaspora either. There are fellow travellers too, with Holy Trinity in Leicester getting 500 on a Sunday, CoE though not always approved of by the hierarchy because of its informal liturgy.
Pentacostalism has moved a long way from the homespun Appalachian church in the video clip, to the razzmatazz of modern mega-churches. The key is that personal relationship with Jesus, and an acceptance of modern consumerist lifestyles.
I'm sure there are bits of the hierarchy that wince at what goes on, much like the Anglo-Catholic ordinands I saw the day after they had an educational trip somewhere similar.
But one of Welby's big ideas has been a hefty expansion in That Sort Of Thing, by getting Holy Trinity Brompton (and its children and their children) and others to plant new congregations into struggling parishes.
And one of the people behind that is Paul Marshall. Yes, that Paul Marshall.
Except that HTB and it's network of churches is now on its way out of the CofE sphere over the "Prayers of Love and Faith" (that's CofE speak for gay marriage in church). As are virtually all the evangelicals - which are the only bit of the CofE that isn't in free fall decline.
My CofE church is actually voting today* on whether the congregation agrees with the leadership that we should leave. We're a bit unusual, because we're an old congregation that's not a parish church, and own our own building, so we can pretty much tell the Bishop "so long and thanks for all the fish", but that is true of a lot of the new churches planted by outfits like HTB and St Helens Bishopsgate.
Incidentally, I've no real problem personally with gay people being gay. I think it's sinful, active homosexuals are called to repent like all sexual sinners, but ultimately it's God's job to make them give an account of their lives, at his judgment, not mine.
My problem with the CofE blessing gay marriages is that this is the leadership blessing something their doctrine teaches is sinful. I'd say the same if they wanted in church blessings for adultery, gluttony, lying or greed. It's just that in our context, homosexuality is a fashionable sin, unlike the others.
*actually, electronically, over the next two weeks, starting today
"Officially what you are doing is a sin but really we want you to find your happiness"
How come some art forms can be enjoyed again and again - yet others are consumed once and that’s it?
I don’t reread novels. The only novel I have ever read twice is Joyce’s Ulysses, it’s the only one good enough to be read more than once
Yet I will reread favourite poems multiple times
I don’t rewatch plays. Once and that’s it. Yet I will look at a favourite painting quite a lot
I seldom rewatch tv or movies. Maybe twice if they’re really good
Yet a fantastic piece of music is indestructibly repeatable. I can listen to Strauss’ Im Abendrot or Michelle Shocked’s Anchorage again and again and again without loss of joy. The joy maybe grows
Why?
Something to do with stories vs. not-stories?
We experience plays, books and whatnot in time, one thing after another. Part of the pleasure is not knowing what will happen next, and that's distinctly one-off.
Whereas the time's arrow thing doesn't apply so much to pictures and music- we can go back and encounter new detail each time.
And the sort of narratives that do repay re-reading, comedy say, there's pleasure in knowing what's coming up. There's a joke on the next page and it's coming, you can anticipate it and turn over ha ha ha.
Wonderful paintings can tell stories. Maybe of your own creation, but they can still be vivid.
Not really tho
No one looks at a painting coz it tells a story. I know they can do this - medieval paintings famously did - but since the early Renaissance we’ve looked at paintings for their beauty and harmony, the aesthetic noom, the vibe and the statement
Defy you not to look at Ford Maddox Brown's "The Last of England" and not create a whole novel around that image.
Especially when you see the hidden child's hand in hers...
It's like listening to a good album more than once.
With Pratchett and Adams, you will pick up more at each reading. I must have read Hitchhiker's Guide a dozen times, and every time I've picked up on things I didn't get the first time around.
With other authors, like Michael Connelly, it's more like background music. I want to relax and let the words and the story flow over me.
I’m honestly trying to think of a single book I’ve read more than once, other than Ulysses
The Highway Code doesn’t count
Can’t think of a single one. I’ve reread funny passages. Or beautiful pages. Wodehouse or Ruskin. But whole books? Nope
I’ve read a few books twice but largely ones that I loved when young/school such as the Italo Calvino books where I’ve read them twenty to thirty years apart for nostalgia but also you react differently as have had many life experiences since the first reading that change how you understand or imagine things.
My greatest re-reading pleasure was The Count of Monte Christo as my understandings of vengeance, love, pain etc are infinitely greater and so you feel the story more.
I can watch Shakespeare plays multiple times as they are often interpreted so differently.
There are some series that I’ve watched a few times such as Narcos as they are a good romp and you notice different things or take a different view of characters each time.
Music I can listen to the same song sometimes multiple times on repeat if I love it or it’s capturing a mood I’m strongly in at that moment.
Now I'm listening to Michelle Shocked's "Come a Long Way"
Ya gotta mix it up. Shel Shocked is one of the great neglected talents of the 1980s-90s
Her song Anchorage has been a favourite of mine since a girl put it on a mixtape for me when I was 16. Don’t know why she put it on as not romantic but glad she did.
Anchorage is one of my favourite songs of all time! Deffo in my top 100, maybe top 50
"Hey Chelle, we was wild then"
One of the greatest ever songs about Friendship, and the life and death of Friendship, and the mediocirty of most lives, and the passing of time. Terribly sad... yet also somehow uplifting?
Now I'm listening to Michelle Shocked's "Come a Long Way"
Ya gotta mix it up. Shel Shocked is one of the great neglected talents of the 1980s-90s
Her song Anchorage has been a favourite of mine since a girl put it on a mixtape for me when I was 16. Don’t know why she put it on as not romantic but glad she did.
Anchorage is one of my favourite songs of all time! Deffo in my top 100, maybe top 50
"Hey Chelle, we was wild then"
One of the greatest ever songs about Friendship, and the life and death of Friendship, and the mediocirty of most lives, and the passing of time. Terribly sad... yet also somehow uplifting?
Yeah, defiinitely not romantic
Michelle Shocked is indeed neglected and Anchorage is one of the great songs of the 1980’s.
She was however, not very successful commercially, probably more popular in UK than USA but went from an icon in the gay community (and lefties) to alienating any fans left by becoming a raging born again homophobe.
She also isn’t on Spotify or YouTube and while I understand the frustration of artists not making money from either, the ship has sailed a long time ago. If you aren’t on those platforms it’s unlikely any new audience will ever find you.
I’m honestly trying to think of a single book I’ve read more than once, other than Ulysses
The Highway Code doesn’t count
Can’t think of a single one. I’ve reread funny passages. Or beautiful pages. Wodehouse or Ruskin. But whole books? Nope
Is it the same with factual books ? I read a lot of history and when Im bored or have nothing else can re read some old favourits - David Chandler The Campaigns of Napoleon or Italy's sorrow by James Holland or anything by John Julius Norwich.
A bipartisan collection of 741 former senior national security leaders, comprised of over 230 general and flag officers including 15 retired four-star generals and admirals, endorsed Vice President Harris.
The group characterized the election as “a choice between serious leadership and vengeful impulsiveness. It is a choice between democracy and authoritarianism.”
It would have to be a really perverse result for Harris to win the popular vote by 5% but still lose the EC. Massive vote build ups in California and New York and Massachussets maybe?
How come some art forms can be enjoyed again and again - yet others are consumed once and that’s it?
I don’t reread novels. The only novel I have ever read twice is Joyce’s Ulysses, it’s the only one good enough to be read more than once
Yet I will reread favourite poems multiple times
I don’t rewatch plays. Once and that’s it. Yet I will look at a favourite painting quite a lot
I seldom rewatch tv or movies. Maybe twice if they’re really good
Yet a fantastic piece of music is indestructibly repeatable. I can listen to Strauss’ Im Abendrot or Michelle Shocked’s Anchorage again and again and again without loss of joy. The joy maybe grows
Why?
10 Novels to read more than once: Bleak House, Wuthering Heights, Dance to the Music of Time, Dubliners (The Dead is a novella so it counts), The Masters, Phineas Finn, Great Expectations, Sinister Street, Emma, The Power and the Glory.
Music to listen to less than once: Haydn's Baryton Trios. Almost everything since the death of Shostakovich.
Otherwise 100% agree.
Reasons for why you are right: ??is to do with how brains work, different forms engage different bits. Some do repetition more than others.
A good list. Maybe Dickens easy to return to as they were written & published in short form serialised weekly or monthly.
I’m honestly trying to think of a single book I’ve read more than once, other than Ulysses
The Highway Code doesn’t count
Can’t think of a single one. I’ve reread funny passages. Or beautiful pages. Wodehouse or Ruskin. But whole books? Nope
I’ve read a few books twice but largely ones that I loved when young/school such as the Italo Calvino books where I’ve read them twenty to thirty years apart for nostalgia but also you react differently as have had many life experiences since the first reading that change how you understand or imagine things.
My greatest re-reading pleasure was The Count of Monte Christo as my understandings of vengeance, love, pain etc are infinitely greater and so you feel the story more.
I can watch Shakespeare plays multiple times as they are often interpreted so differently.
There are some series that I’ve watched a few times such as Narcos as they are a good romp and you notice different things or take a different view of characters each time.
Music I can listen to the same song sometimes multiple times on repeat if I love it or it’s capturing a mood I’m strongly in at that moment.
I rewatched breaking bad a 2nd time. Now that was good.
From what I have heard of him this absolutely has to be worth a paltry £8 on kindle
His death affected me badly. I feel great guilt in our starting very much from the same place and I devoted my life to the pursuit of money whilst he just did huge good for others. He was such a great chap.
My last meeting with him was very funny where we got suitably stewed at a bar and reminisced about bad things we had done at school and how he admired my complete disregard for the rules. A funny, intelligent and good hearted man.
Even his last acts were for other people as the royalties go to palliative care charities in Africa where he had worked for overseas aid organisations.
It would have to be a really perverse result for Harris to win the popular vote by 5% but still lose the EC. Massive vote build ups in California and New York and Massachussets maybe?
I think by 2036 it is possible for the Dems to win the popular vote by ten million votes and lose the electoral college vote.
The GOP have only won the popular vote once in the last eight elections.
I’m honestly trying to think of a single book I’ve read more than once, other than Ulysses
The Highway Code doesn’t count
Can’t think of a single one. I’ve reread funny passages. Or beautiful pages. Wodehouse or Ruskin. But whole books? Nope
I’ve read a few books twice but largely ones that I loved when young/school such as the Italo Calvino books where I’ve read them twenty to thirty years apart for nostalgia but also you react differently as have had many life experiences since the first reading that change how you understand or imagine things.
My greatest re-reading pleasure was The Count of Monte Christo as my understandings of vengeance, love, pain etc are infinitely greater and so you feel the story more.
I can watch Shakespeare plays multiple times as they are often interpreted so differently.
There are some series that I’ve watched a few times such as Narcos as they are a good romp and you notice different things or take a different view of characters each time.
Music I can listen to the same song sometimes multiple times on repeat if I love it or it’s capturing a mood I’m strongly in at that moment.
I rewatched breaking bad a 2nd time. Now that was good.
I often watch films multiple times. The first time to get the gist then after that to savour the detail, nuances, cinematography etc. I watched "Perfect Days" recently on consecutive nights, and will watch it again I am sure. Fiction books I rarely re-read, as the investment in time is too much.
This honestly reminds me of the excuses I once heard when I was banged up. From robbers. "Well, 'e was just wanderin around with that ten grand watch on his arm, it was a hard one to turn down"
Did she really say it was hard to turn down? What a silly way to explain it.
The occasional concert ticket or day at Lord's is not exactly intense corruption, we have gifts registers for politicians high and low and though we need to be morally strict with those in power over us we don't expect never accepting anything, but that's not a good way of defending the practice.
Watch the clip, it's only 50 seconds, and that's exactly what she says."It was a hard one to turn down, one of my kids really wanted to go" - she's kinda blaming her children, and her essential excuse is "this bribe was hard to turn down, because it was a really nice bribe, if it had been an afternoon on Great Yarmouth pier, I might well have said no"
Fucking unbelieveable, they are not only venal they are really bad at being venal, they haven't got any good excuses ready to go. And the SMILING as she explains her free 14k birthday party!!
All of them, they're all doing it, and they've all just spent ten years slamming the Tories for the same
What a shower
It's OK, though, because they are Labour and thus it's totally different.
Unluckily for Labour, the polls show that the voters do not see them as any different, and Starmer has suffered the worst polling drop of any post-election-winning PM in history
Labour are painting a portrait of themselves as clueless, smirking, hypocritical grifters which is going to be REALLY hard to change, now that it is set in place
The Left (because they are assumed to be better people) are held to higher standards. It comes with the territory.
Or, they're just held to the same and act with incredulity when they realise that to be the case.
But there is a difference. Eg Emma Thompson will get flack for flying somewhere, Lulu won't. That's just one example.
Yes, but the only reason Emma Thompson gets flack for flying somewhere is that she lectures people on not flying. Lulu, AFAIAA, doesn't.
What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?
It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the right, has no such bar to leap.
We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is made now. Different standards, higher for the Left.
No. It’s about their respective, publicly held beliefs.
Alan Sugar wants very much to be Big Business Tycoon. So having a helicopter is entirely in line with what he sells himself as. He’s not being hypocritical.
If you sell yourself as a Working Class Man Of The People, private helicopters are hypocritical.
You again make my point. Being left wing and at the same time enjoying a luxurious lifestyle is deemed by many (eg you here) as "hypocrisy". This is applying different (higher) standards to such people.
And you miss the point again.
For example, there are numerous examples of people who proclaim “Dog eat Dog Capitalism”. And then get ridiculed for buying government contracts by the yard and renting politicians to do it.
It is about applying *your own, self proclaimed, standards, to yourself*.
I don't go around missing points. C'mon.
What are the "self proclaimed standards" that a progressive is flouting by enjoying an affluent lifestyle?
What is the term "Champagne Socialist" getting at?
Dont you think a new asylum centre in Hampstead would be a good idea. Perhaps near the Heath so you could enjoy the diversity on your walks.
See, you're doing exactly what I'm talking about. This is a cakewalk today, I must say.
No but you like and are happy with high levels of immigration. So why not do your bit and lobby for an asylum centre near the Heath. Why should it only be the good folks of Barking who suffer the wonders of diversity.
Perhaps you should visit Hampstead. It isn’t all rich white people. Or even rich people. There are quite a few poor bits, if you bother to look. And like most of London, every culture you can think of.
You really should try it - it’s like visiting the world, in a mile walk.
The infinite repeatability of great music is surely proof that it is the supreme art form, only really matched by the domestic psychological thriller set on, say, an island or a lonely beach with a female protagonist in her mid 30s and at least one spooky child
After that perhaps great poetry?
The west has largely lost the art of oral storytelling, so music is probably the oldest art form, followed by painting (caves).
If it was the supreme art form though, why is most of it so recent (comparatively) ?.
Talented as she may be, I don’t think Taylor Swift is the Zenith of art.
I’m honestly trying to think of a single book I’ve read more than once, other than Ulysses
The Highway Code doesn’t count
Can’t think of a single one. I’ve reread funny passages. Or beautiful pages. Wodehouse or Ruskin. But whole books? Nope
I’ve read a few books twice but largely ones that I loved when young/school such as the Italo Calvino books where I’ve read them twenty to thirty years apart for nostalgia but also you react differently as have had many life experiences since the first reading that change how you understand or imagine things.
My greatest re-reading pleasure was The Count of Monte Christo as my understandings of vengeance, love, pain etc are infinitely greater and so you feel the story more.
I can watch Shakespeare plays multiple times as they are often interpreted so differently.
There are some series that I’ve watched a few times such as Narcos as they are a good romp and you notice different things or take a different view of characters each time.
Music I can listen to the same song sometimes multiple times on repeat if I love it or it’s capturing a mood I’m strongly in at that moment.
I rewatched breaking bad a 2nd time. Now that was good.
I tried to watch Breaking Bad a second time but found it too upsetting knowing what was to come.
How come some art forms can be enjoyed again and again - yet others are consumed once and that’s it?
I don’t reread novels. The only novel I have ever read twice is Joyce’s Ulysses, it’s the only one good enough to be read more than once
Yet I will reread favourite poems multiple times
I don’t rewatch plays. Once and that’s it. Yet I will look at a favourite painting quite a lot
I seldom rewatch tv or movies. Maybe twice if they’re really good
Yet a fantastic piece of music is indestructibly repeatable. I can listen to Strauss’ Im Abendrot or Michelle Shocked’s Anchorage again and again and again without loss of joy. The joy maybe grows
Why?
Obviously there will be an element of personal preference, but I think Foxy's point about time investment can play a part, as well as volume of new content produced.
I'm sure there's just as much new music produced as new novels, but the former don't take up as much time, if you go back and relisten you barely notice the time. I'm just guessing but I suspect poetry, at least that which penetrates through to the mass market, is much rarer so harder to come by, people will find it easier to stick with old favourites.
I rewatch films and tv shows a lot, in fact in the last 5 years I rarely invest time in new tv shows. I have read many books multiple times over, though again in the last 5 years I have done so a lot less, not so much on time as I read very quickly, but because I have been reading new things.
But interactivity and collectivity may play a part too. Plays, books, films, you just watch, each in their own way. Music you might dance, sing, or hum to, which though level is still more mentally engaging perhaps.
LIkewise video games (which I have played less of in recent years) you might replay for hundreds of hours, so despite their time commitment their interactivity keeps it fresh.
I have inadvertently read a couple of books twice. Just finished one in fact. By about page 30 I realised that I was familiar with the story, and remembered the ending. However, I carried on reading, and their were great swathes that I had no memory of at all - including the central character murdering someone.
A bipartisan collection of 741 former senior national security leaders, comprised of over 230 general and flag officers including 15 retired four-star generals and admirals, endorsed Vice President Harris.
The group characterized the election as “a choice between serious leadership and vengeful impulsiveness. It is a choice between democracy and authoritarianism.”
It's true, but it is still 50/50, not sure how much this stuff has an effect. Stuff Trump regularly comes out with now even the GOP used to criticise 8 years ago, but not a peep anymore.
How come some art forms can be enjoyed again and again - yet others are consumed once and that’s it?
I don’t reread novels. The only novel I have ever read twice is Joyce’s Ulysses, it’s the only one good enough to be read more than once
Yet I will reread favourite poems multiple times
I don’t rewatch plays. Once and that’s it. Yet I will look at a favourite painting quite a lot
I seldom rewatch tv or movies. Maybe twice if they’re really good
Yet a fantastic piece of music is indestructibly repeatable. I can listen to Strauss’ Im Abendrot or Michelle Shocked’s Anchorage again and again and again without loss of joy. The joy maybe grows
Why?
10 Novels to read more than once: Bleak House, Wuthering Heights, Dance to the Music of Time, Dubliners (The Dead is a novella so it counts), The Masters, Phineas Finn, Great Expectations, Sinister Street, Emma, The Power and the Glory.
Music to listen to less than once: Haydn's Baryton Trios. Almost everything since the death of Shostakovich.
Otherwise 100% agree.
Reasons for why you are right: ??is to do with how brains work, different forms engage different bits. Some do repetition more than others.
Oh come, come, come.
What about Millions of Women are Waiting to Meet You?
How come some art forms can be enjoyed again and again - yet others are consumed once and that’s it?
I don’t reread novels. The only novel I have ever read twice is Joyce’s Ulysses, it’s the only one good enough to be read more than once
Yet I will reread favourite poems multiple times
I don’t rewatch plays. Once and that’s it. Yet I will look at a favourite painting quite a lot
I seldom rewatch tv or movies. Maybe twice if they’re really good
Yet a fantastic piece of music is indestructibly repeatable. I can listen to Strauss’ Im Abendrot or Michelle Shocked’s Anchorage again and again and again without loss of joy. The joy maybe grows
Why?
Something to do with stories vs. not-stories?
We experience plays, books and whatnot in time, one thing after another. Part of the pleasure is not knowing what will happen next, and that's distinctly one-off.
Whereas the time's arrow thing doesn't apply so much to pictures and music- we can go back and encounter new detail each time.
And the sort of narratives that do repay re-reading, comedy say, there's pleasure in knowing what's coming up. There's a joke on the next page and it's coming, you can anticipate it and turn over ha ha ha.
Artistic depth?
Some books are full of layers of detail, description, characters and plot. You can get something out of them each time you read them.
I have a copy of “Seven Men and Two Others” by Max Beerbohm that I have read again and again over the decades. For some of us it will always be 2:10pm, 3rd June 1997, in the British Museum Reading Room….
I’m honestly trying to think of a single book I’ve read more than once, other than Ulysses
The Highway Code doesn’t count
Can’t think of a single one. I’ve reread funny passages. Or beautiful pages. Wodehouse or Ruskin. But whole books? Nope
I’ve read a few books twice but largely ones that I loved when young/school such as the Italo Calvino books where I’ve read them twenty to thirty years apart for nostalgia but also you react differently as have had many life experiences since the first reading that change how you understand or imagine things.
My greatest re-reading pleasure was The Count of Monte Christo as my understandings of vengeance, love, pain etc are infinitely greater and so you feel the story more.
I can watch Shakespeare plays multiple times as they are often interpreted so differently.
There are some series that I’ve watched a few times such as Narcos as they are a good romp and you notice different things or take a different view of characters each time.
Music I can listen to the same song sometimes multiple times on repeat if I love it or it’s capturing a mood I’m strongly in at that moment.
I rewatched breaking bad a 2nd time. Now that was good.
I often watch films multiple times. The first time to get the gist then after that to savour the detail, nuances, cinematography etc. I watched "Perfect Days" recently on consecutive nights, and will watch it again I am sure. Fiction books I rarely re-read, as the investment in time is too much.
Shutter Island is a definite consecutive nights candidate. Watching it again knowing the twist is extraordinary. It's a different film, like that optical illusion of the guy in the gorilla suit among the basketball players.
The infinite repeatability of great music is surely proof that it is the supreme art form, only really matched by the domestic psychological thriller set on, say, an island or a lonely beach with a female protagonist in her mid 30s and at least one spooky child
If only could someone could think of an example of such.
Google's first result for me is The Housemaid by Freida McFadden, which is what you were probably thinking of.
I’m honestly trying to think of a single book I’ve read more than once, other than Ulysses
The Highway Code doesn’t count
Can’t think of a single one. I’ve reread funny passages. Or beautiful pages. Wodehouse or Ruskin. But whole books? Nope
I’ve read a few books twice but largely ones that I loved when young/school such as the Italo Calvino books where I’ve read them twenty to thirty years apart for nostalgia but also you react differently as have had many life experiences since the first reading that change how you understand or imagine things.
My greatest re-reading pleasure was The Count of Monte Christo as my understandings of vengeance, love, pain etc are infinitely greater and so you feel the story more.
I can watch Shakespeare plays multiple times as they are often interpreted so differently.
There are some series that I’ve watched a few times such as Narcos as they are a good romp and you notice different things or take a different view of characters each time.
Music I can listen to the same song sometimes multiple times on repeat if I love it or it’s capturing a mood I’m strongly in at that moment.
What about books you can read different ways?
Money Dick is a thriller about a lunatic quest. A pile of good writing. An exposition on the human condition. And an info dump on 19th Cent knowledge of whales.
From what I have heard of him this absolutely has to be worth a paltry £8 on kindle
His death affected me badly. I feel great guilt in our starting very much from the same place and I devoted my life to the pursuit of money whilst he just did huge good for others. He was such a great chap.
My last meeting with him was very funny where we got suitably stewed at a bar and reminisced about bad things we had done at school and how he admired my complete disregard for the rules. A funny, intelligent and good hearted man.
Even his last acts were for other people as the royalties go to palliative care charities in Africa where he had worked for overseas aid organisations.
Of course you are fellow islanders
I shall buy to read on my voyage into the Maghreb.
I’m honestly trying to think of a single book I’ve read more than once, other than Ulysses
The Highway Code doesn’t count
Can’t think of a single one. I’ve reread funny passages. Or beautiful pages. Wodehouse or Ruskin. But whole books? Nope
I’ve read a few books twice but largely ones that I loved when young/school such as the Italo Calvino books where I’ve read them twenty to thirty years apart for nostalgia but also you react differently as have had many life experiences since the first reading that change how you understand or imagine things.
My greatest re-reading pleasure was The Count of Monte Christo as my understandings of vengeance, love, pain etc are infinitely greater and so you feel the story more.
I can watch Shakespeare plays multiple times as they are often interpreted so differently.
There are some series that I’ve watched a few times such as Narcos as they are a good romp and you notice different things or take a different view of characters each time.
Music I can listen to the same song sometimes multiple times on repeat if I love it or it’s capturing a mood I’m strongly in at that moment.
I rewatched breaking bad a 2nd time. Now that was good.
I often watch films multiple times. The first time to get the gist then after that to savour the detail, nuances, cinematography etc. I watched "Perfect Days" recently on consecutive nights, and will watch it again I am sure. Fiction books I rarely re-read, as the investment in time is too much.
Shutter Island is a definite consecutive nights candidate. Watching it again knowing the twist is extraordinary. It's a different film, like that optical illusion of the guy in the gorilla suit among the basketball players.
I’m honestly trying to think of a single book I’ve read more than once, other than Ulysses
The Highway Code doesn’t count
Can’t think of a single one. I’ve reread funny passages. Or beautiful pages. Wodehouse or Ruskin. But whole books? Nope
I’ve read a few books twice but largely ones that I loved when young/school such as the Italo Calvino books where I’ve read them twenty to thirty years apart for nostalgia but also you react differently as have had many life experiences since the first reading that change how you understand or imagine things.
My greatest re-reading pleasure was The Count of Monte Christo as my understandings of vengeance, love, pain etc are infinitely greater and so you feel the story more.
I can watch Shakespeare plays multiple times as they are often interpreted so differently.
There are some series that I’ve watched a few times such as Narcos as they are a good romp and you notice different things or take a different view of characters each time.
Music I can listen to the same song sometimes multiple times on repeat if I love it or it’s capturing a mood I’m strongly in at that moment.
What about books you can read different ways?
Money Dick is a thriller about a lunatic quest. A pile of good writing. An exposition on the human condition. And an info dump on 19th Cent knowledge of whales.
Comments
I’ve noted, over the years that many of the innovative things that the ultra rich do in their own homes become common within a decade. I’ve seen this with insulation products, light wells, powered roof hatches, water filtering and reclamation - the early adopters pay the way for the rest of us.
I’ve seen some London mansions where the house uses nearly no external power and very little water either.
Generally speaking, giving people a say by giving them a vote tends to act as a way of defusing people's frustrations and anger more effectively than building a repressive state apparatus to deny the people a say.
What are the "self proclaimed standards" that a progressive is flouting by enjoying an affluent lifestyle?
What is the term "Champagne Socialist" getting at?
The LDs were second in 2019 in Chichester as well.
As I said earlier unless the LDs can start to appeal beyond middle class voters to working class voters and Reform appeal beyond white working class voters to middle class voters neither will have any hope of replacing Labour or the Tories anytime soon
Ya gotta mix it up. Shel Shocked is one of the great neglected talents of the 1980s-90s
Frustrated old people just aren't as much of a threat to public order as frustrated young people.
We have a recent example of a Labour MP who is a semi-slum lord. And campaigned against landlords.
Reform-Tory (or Reform-Labour) coalition would be a nightmare. As would Tory-Labour. Lib-Labour with latter the minor partners could work. Lib-Tory (either way around) worked very well.
I don't say it will happen. But it is among the possibles. And both Tories and Labour are helping the process at the moment. Which is inexplicable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Camden_London_Borough_Council_election
From each according to his ability to each according to his needs. Nobody needs champagne
"Hey Chelle, we was wild then"
One of the greatest ever songs about Friendship, and the life and death of Friendship, and the mediocirty of most lives, and the passing of time. Terribly sad... yet also somehow uplifting?
Yeah, defiinitely not romantic
Labours preachy morality is a hangover from the methodist days. In those days there were people who put principle before personal interest. These days they are few and far between. It just the self-righteous middle class lefties telling everyone else what to do.
I just don't understand why politicians of all stripes think it's fine to accept freebies, some costing thousands of pounds.
The phrase "no such thing as a free lunch" should instantly come to mind, especially if you're an MP and definitely if you're a cabinet minister or PM.
I know it's gone on for ever, but I'd like it to stop. It's not jealousy (in the Fire Service we were lucky to get a tin of biscuits or a tin of sweets off a local supermarket at Christmas between us!) I just don't understand why the MPs can't see how corrupt it looks.
There is a reason why gifts and corporate entertainment are closely monitored and controlled in the private sector.
Ministers have the power to make decisions that affect millions. They should not only be incorruptible but they need to be seen to be incorruptible.
How come some art forms can be enjoyed again and again - yet others are consumed once and that’s it?
I don’t reread novels. The only novel I have ever read twice is Joyce’s Ulysses, it’s the only one good enough to be read more than once
Yet I will reread favourite poems multiple times
I don’t rewatch plays. Once and that’s it. Yet I will look at a favourite painting quite a lot
I seldom rewatch tv or movies. Maybe twice if they’re really good
Yet a fantastic piece of music is indestructibly repeatable. I can listen to Strauss’ Im Abendrot or Michelle Shocked’s Anchorage again and again and again without loss of joy. The joy maybe grows
Why?
Hang on, wasn't Barry Gardiner an actual Chinese spy? Surely we have bigger problems with him than helicoptery.
Saw her at WOMAD Bracknell '88. Wonderful.
Presumably she had to sign off on all Downing Street passes
But did she also initiate the request?
Maybe.
Music to listen to less than once: Haydn's Baryton Trios. Almost everything since the death of Shostakovich.
Otherwise 100% agree.
Reasons for why you are right: ??is to do with how brains work, different forms engage different bits. Some do repetition more than others.
We experience plays, books and whatnot in time, one thing after another. Part of the pleasure is not knowing what will happen next, and that's distinctly one-off.
Whereas the time's arrow thing doesn't apply so much to pictures and music- we can go back and encounter new detail each time.
And the sort of narratives that do repay re-reading, comedy say, there's pleasure in knowing what's coming up. There's a joke on the next page and it's coming, you can anticipate it and turn over ha ha ha.
If you go and see a band, you want to hear their hits, the songs you know and have heard many times before. If you go and see the same band next year, you want to hear the same hits. Bands know this, and so often perform their old songs as well as their new album. Bands that just play new stuff get badly reviewed.
Yet if you go and see a comedian, you usually expect a totally different show from last year, you want to hear their new jokes and not their old jokes.
However, I suspect it is more this: art which delivers a story - novels, drama, movies, TV - can only deliver that once. When you've heard the story - got the crucial info - you are evolved to move on to something which will provide more or different information. You can't waste time hearing the same shit
But poems, songs, paintings do NOT tell a story. All you have is the aesthetic pleasure, which can be enjoyed again and again
Notable that Ulysses does NOT (notoriously) tell a story. It is just the aesthetic pleasure of the words and word-play
They put in place a fast track during an unprecedented situation. They referred people to that fast track who, it is alleged, turned out to be shysters.
So they are guilty of weakening normal controls. Forgivable.
They are guilty of knowing and recommending shysters. That’s poor judgement and worthy of criticism.
But I don’t think they are guilty of fraud or grifting in these cases
Shall we do the Mind-Body Problem? Can probably solve that before my Uber arrives
Enjoy those.
So yes.
But that's besides the point - this specific point about money and lifestyle.
Q: Is a wealthy progressive just by dint of being wealthy more likely to be called a hypocrite/phony than a wealthy reactionary?
Yes. We see it all the time. Seen it a few times on this very thread. C'mon, you have to concede a point sometimes. It strengthens a person to do that.
They now conveniently forget those contracts would, er, not have delivered PPE.
Ronan Keating and Lisa Nandy. Keating buys a helicopter, no drama. Nandy buys one - never hears the end of it.
Can we move on now with the general point agreed as made?
No one looks at a painting coz it tells a story. I know they can do this - medieval paintings famously did - but since the early Renaissance we’ve looked at paintings for their beauty and harmony, the aesthetic noom, the vibe and the statement
I can see people returning to a sonnet over and over again, or lines of a poem, but does anyone read the whole of ‘the Ancient Mariner’ repeatedly or the 3 thousand odd lines of Beowulf ?
It’s not just time - the effort in reading a novel, is hugely more than listening to a pop song.
You can also do other tasks simultaneously to listening to music.
Art can have immediate and visceral effects.
Hard to think of a novel having the same effect in 30 seconds, to that of seeing Munch’s The Scream or Van Goghs Impressionism.
Why wealthy people think their opinions just must be heard is down to their egos not much else.
The Highway Code doesn’t count
Can’t think of a single one. I’ve reread funny passages. Or beautiful pages. Wodehouse or Ruskin. But whole books? Nope
After that perhaps great poetry?
Now Kamala Harris is up 5
https://x.com/umichvoter/status/1837840491221508202
From what I have heard of him this absolutely has to be worth a paltry £8 on kindle
They are being kind and I think good.
Especially when you see the hidden child's hand in hers...
It's like listening to a good album more than once.
With Pratchett and Adams, you will pick up more at each reading. I must have read Hitchhiker's Guide a dozen times, and every time I've picked up on things I didn't get the first time around.
With other authors, like Michael Connelly, it's more like background music. I want to relax and let the words and the story flow over me.
My greatest re-reading pleasure was The Count of Monte Christo as my understandings of vengeance, love, pain etc are infinitely greater and so you feel the story more.
I can watch Shakespeare plays multiple times as they are often interpreted so differently.
There are some series that I’ve watched a few times such as Narcos as they are a good romp and you notice different things or take a different view of characters each time.
Music I can listen to the same song sometimes multiple times on repeat if I love it or it’s capturing a mood I’m strongly in at that moment.
Michelle Shocked is indeed neglected and Anchorage is one of the great songs of the 1980’s.
She was however, not very successful commercially, probably more popular in UK than USA but went from an icon in the gay community (and lefties) to alienating any fans left by becoming a raging born again homophobe.
She also isn’t on Spotify or YouTube and while I understand the frustration of artists not making money from either, the ship has sailed a long time ago. If you aren’t on those platforms it’s unlikely any new audience will ever find you.
The group characterized the election as “a choice between serious leadership and vengeful impulsiveness. It is a choice between democracy and authoritarianism.”
https://x.com/RpsAgainstTrump/status/1837855083075174714
Maybe Dickens easy to return to as they were written & published in short form serialised weekly or monthly.
My last meeting with him was very funny where we got suitably stewed at a bar and reminisced about bad things we had done at school and how he admired my complete disregard for the rules. A funny, intelligent and good hearted man.
Even his last acts were for other people as the royalties go to palliative care charities in Africa where he had worked for overseas aid organisations.
The GOP have only won the popular vote once in the last eight elections.
You really should try it - it’s like visiting the world, in a mile walk.
If it was the supreme art form though, why is most of it so recent (comparatively) ?.
Talented as she may be, I don’t think Taylor Swift is the Zenith of art.
I'm sure there's just as much new music produced as new novels, but the former don't take up as much time, if you go back and relisten you barely notice the time. I'm just guessing but I suspect poetry, at least that which penetrates through to the mass market, is much rarer so harder to come by, people will find it easier to stick with old favourites.
I rewatch films and tv shows a lot, in fact in the last 5 years I rarely invest time in new tv shows. I have read many books multiple times over, though again in the last 5 years I have done so a lot less, not so much on time as I read very quickly, but because I have been reading new things.
But interactivity and collectivity may play a part too. Plays, books, films, you just watch, each in their own way. Music you might dance, sing, or hum to, which though level is still more mentally engaging perhaps.
LIkewise video games (which I have played less of in recent years) you might replay for hundreds of hours, so despite their time commitment their interactivity keeps it fresh.
What about Millions of Women are Waiting to Meet You?
Some books are full of layers of detail, description, characters and plot. You can get something out of them each time you read them.
I have a copy of “Seven Men and Two Others” by Max Beerbohm that I have read again and again over the decades. For some of us it will always be 2:10pm, 3rd June 1997, in the British Museum Reading Room….
Google's first result for me is The Housemaid by Freida McFadden, which is what you were probably thinking of.
Money Dick is a thriller about a lunatic quest. A pile of good writing. An exposition on the human condition. And an info dump on 19th Cent knowledge of whales.
I shall buy to read on my voyage into the Maghreb.