On the subject of flags, I think the French and the Americans do it better. They are visibly proud of their country, in a way we in Britain are not. This is not to imply that Britain has at all times been great*, but a recognition that -on balance- Britain has been good for the world.
The problem is that the Union Jack flying in the UK all too often suggests that the person flying it would rather the Empire had not gone away.
In the words of Show of Hands (thanks @Richard_Tyndall), it's my flag too, and I want it back.
* The opium wars and the betrayal of the white Russians spring to mind
The French don’t have the same level of shame about their past - they’ve made up whole national myths about liberating themselves from the Nazis.
The French are very nationalistic in the best and worst of ways in a way that we aren’t. French governents will tell the EU/Nato to go hang if it’s not in the French interest. They are super protective of French business and culture - the academie who protect the French language is just a perfect example.
They have also been invaded and suffered humiliations since the early 1800s that we haven’t which inevitably creates a sense of national pride to counteract the national shame.
They needed to tell themselves that everyone was in the resistance where, if all who claimed they had been would have overwhelmed the Germans by force of numbers and arms.
France defiantly kept their overseas territories as France and resisted handing independence in a way Britain felt unable to do.
The French flag also isn’t a symbol of a peaceful creation of a nation out of a number of disparate parts and history, it’s a symbol of La Gloire, the overthrow of tyrants and France’s apogee as a power.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
No one gives a fuck, any more
PB does not seem to get that
Racism is being rehabilitated, you mean? I think that's right.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Interesting. So are you claiming the Scots have an inferiority complex?
Those flying a Saltire in their gardens? I think that's at least part of it, yes.
The thing about the English (and I guess the UK as whole) is that they have not had a revolution and they haven't overthrown an oppressor, so they don't need to define themselves against one in the same way as the Americans, the Scottish, the Welsh, the French etc do.
The one thing they can cling to is the Norman Invasion, hence the febrile fascination with Anglo-Saxons. Godwinson's flag was
The English indeed had a revolution, but at 400 years ago it no longer has any relevance.in England (the Irish will.tell you something else about Cromwell, not sure about the Scots)
There were, in fact, multiple revolutions since.
The Reform Act, universal suffrage, the show down with the House of Lords in 1911 - these would have been revolutions in many countries. The British way was to bend to change which resulted in a vast reduction in bloodshed.
And of course the Glorious Revolution (which also pissed off the Irish)
York. I thought it was one of those genteel slightly Hyacinth Bouquet meets Alan Bennett Yorkshire towns like Wetherby or Harrogate. But no, from this weekend’s evidence it’s very much a city of “the people”.
Tattier than its sibling Canterbury, most surprisingly. And humming with 21st century chain nightlife. Within a 5 minute walk of my Airbnb there’s a Slug & Lettuce, O’Neills, Yates’s wine lodge, and a Pitcher & Piano. Brands I thought had died a decade or more ago. Not to mention “Lil’s on the waterfront”, “plonkers”, “the stone roses bar”, “Valhalla” and a whole panoply of other venues, filled with the dolled up and lagered up party animals of North Yorkshire. Who’d have thought it?
York's rugby is league, not union. It's a railway town. Thus, like Crewe a lot more working class than its hinterland. As well as 2 more universities than Harrogate and Wetherby combined.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Even Rod Liddle wrote in this week's Fint Knapper Gazette that a country that is flying too many of its own flags all over the place is a sign of a country in trouble and short on confidence.
Which is true
What PB does not seem to understand is that maybe 35-40% of the country (possibly a lot more in the right context) simply do not give a fuck, any more, if you call them "racist", "gammons", "Nazis", whatever. They've heard it for fifty years, and they've been scorned for fifty years, and they've been ignored, in terms of their views on mass immigration for the same fifty years, and as a result their towns, cities and country have been transformed in a way they not only did not vote for, but expressly voted AGAINST
The lies are now coming back to haunt the liars, and a bill is about to be presented. I prefer the German term. Die Rechnung
Not entirely surprised you prefer the German.
Droll
It is true tho, the German language is generally unpretty, and sometimes quite harsh, but on occasions that is an advantage
DIE RECHNUNG! is fabulous in its emphatic anger
I have long cherished an anecdote I heard, that the Italian police have to train their dogs in German, because dogs simply don't obey the fey mellifluous babble of orders in Italian, it sounds like someone reciting a nice menu. But if the dogs are told "SITZEN!!!" then they bloody well do it, in terror
Almost certainly untrue, but I will continue to believe it, coz
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
No one gives a fuck, any more
PB does not seem to get that
Racism is being rehabilitated, you mean? I think that's right.
Yes, I think it is
And no, it's not good, It is deeply, horribly sad. But it is happening
I fear for the countries my kids will inherit, on either side of the world. Australia is having some similar ructions, albeit from a much more prosperous starting point
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Even Rod Liddle wrote in this week's Fint Knapper Gazette that a country that is flying too many of its own flags all over the place is a sign of a country in trouble and short on confidence.
Which is true
What PB does not seem to understand is that maybe 35-40% of the country (possibly a lot more in the right context) simply do not give a fuck, any more, if you call them "racist", "gammons", "Nazis", whatever. They've heard it for fifty years, and they've been scorned for fifty years, and they've been ignored, in terms of their views on mass immigration for the same fifty years, and as a result their towns, cities and country have been transformed in a way they not only did not vote for, but expressly voted AGAINST
The lies are now coming back to haunt the liars, and a bill is about to be presented. I prefer the German term. Die Rechnung
Not entirely surprised you prefer the German.
Droll
It is true tho, the German language is generally unpretty, and sometimes quite harsh, but on occasions that is an advantage
DIE RECHNUNG! is fabulous in its emphatic anger
I have long cherished an anecdote I heard, that the Italian police have to train their dogs in German, because dogs simply don't obey the fey mellifluous babble of orders in Italian, it sounds like someone reciting a nice menu. But if the dogs are told "SITZEN!!!" then they bloody well do it, in terror
Almost certainly untrue, but I will continue to believe it, coz
I love the comparisons of the Euro languages for Butterfly.
French - Papillon Italian - farfalla Spanish - Mariposa Portuguese - borboleta
And then the Germans come along and order what sounds like an instruction for a mass killing with a shout of “Schmeterling”.
On the subject of flags, I think the French and the Americans do it better. They are visibly proud of their country, in a way we in Britain are not. This is not to imply that Britain has at all times been great*, but a recognition that -on balance- Britain has been good for the world.
The problem is that the Union Jack flying in the UK all too often suggests that the person flying it would rather the Empire had not gone away.
In the words of Show of Hands (thanks @Richard_Tyndall), it's my flag too, and I want it back.
* The opium wars and the betrayal of the white Russians spring to mind
This is largely untrue about France
They have better civic pride - they look after their towns and cities much better than we do, and we could learn a lot - but French identity is easily as contested as that of Britain/England. Indeed they have large ethnic minority groups, from north Africa, who actively reject and detest "Frenchness", for some understandable historical reasons, in a way you don't get in Britain. We have different issues
Essentially, mass immigration has been a disastrous error for every country in Europe
America does it rather better, because it always was "the melting pot". Bit tough on the Navajo, tho
Did you actually READ MY POST?
It was - right there in the first sentence - about flying flags. You know, fabric things, flutter in the wind.
It is massively more common to see French and US flags flown in public in their countries than to see Union Jacks in ours.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Even Rod Liddle wrote in this week's Fint Knapper Gazette that a country that is flying too many of its own flags all over the place is a sign of a country in trouble and short on confidence.
Which is true
What PB does not seem to understand is that maybe 35-40% of the country (possibly a lot more in the right context) simply do not give a fuck, any more, if you call them "racist", "gammons", "Nazis", whatever. They've heard it for fifty years, and they've been scorned for fifty years, and they've been ignored, in terms of their views on mass immigration for the same fifty years, and as a result their towns, cities and country have been transformed in a way they not only did not vote for, but expressly voted AGAINST
The lies are now coming back to haunt the liars, and a bill is about to be presented. I prefer the German term. Die Rechnung
Not entirely surprised you prefer the German.
Droll
It is true tho, the German language is generally unpretty, and sometimes quite harsh, but on occasions that is an advantage
DIE RECHNUNG! is fabulous in its emphatic anger
I have long cherished an anecdote I heard, that the Italian police have to train their dogs in German, because dogs simply don't obey the fey mellifluous babble of orders in Italian, it sounds like someone reciting a nice menu. But if the dogs are told "SITZEN!!!" then they bloody well do it, in terror
Almost certainly untrue, but I will continue to believe it, coz
I love the comparisons of the Euro languages for Butterfly.
French - Papillon Italian - farfalla Spanish - Mariposa Portuguese - borboleta
And then the Germans come along and order what sounds like an instruction for a mass killing with a shout of “Schmeterling”.
To be fair to the Germans, their language is rather agreeable compared to the harshness of Dutch, and positively lyrical compared to the Nordic tongues. Which are quite remarkably ugly. Danish, my God, its like a mixture of burping and barking, with a dash of yodel
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Even Rod Liddle wrote in this week's Fint Knapper Gazette that a country that is flying too many of its own flags all over the place is a sign of a country in trouble and short on confidence.
Which is true
What PB does not seem to understand is that maybe 35-40% of the country (possibly a lot more in the right context) simply do not give a fuck, any more, if you call them "racist", "gammons", "Nazis", whatever. They've heard it for fifty years, and they've been scorned for fifty years, and they've been ignored, in terms of their views on mass immigration for the same fifty years, and as a result their towns, cities and country have been transformed in a way they not only did not vote for, but expressly voted AGAINST
The lies are now coming back to haunt the liars, and a bill is about to be presented. I prefer the German term. Die Rechnung
Not entirely surprised you prefer the German.
Droll
It is true tho, the German language is generally unpretty, and sometimes quite harsh, but on occasions that is an advantage
DIE RECHNUNG! is fabulous in its emphatic anger
I have long cherished an anecdote I heard, that the Italian police have to train their dogs in German, because dogs simply don't obey the fey mellifluous babble of orders in Italian, it sounds like someone reciting a nice menu. But if the dogs are told "SITZEN!!!" then they bloody well do it, in terror
Almost certainly untrue, but I will continue to believe it, coz
I love the comparisons of the Euro languages for Butterfly.
French - Papillon Italian - farfalla Spanish - Mariposa Portuguese - borboleta
And then the Germans come along and order what sounds like an instruction for a mass killing with a shout of “Schmeterling”.
Schmetterling sounds like quite a gentle word as far as German words go. I can imagine whispering it seductively.
Another one for your list is féileacán which is the Irish for butterfly.
On the subject of flags, I think the French and the Americans do it better. They are visibly proud of their country, in a way we in Britain are not. This is not to imply that Britain has at all times been great*, but a recognition that -on balance- Britain has been good for the world.
The problem is that the Union Jack flying in the UK all too often suggests that the person flying it would rather the Empire had not gone away.
In the words of Show of Hands (thanks @Richard_Tyndall), it's my flag too, and I want it back.
* The opium wars and the betrayal of the white Russians spring to mind
This is largely untrue about France
They have better civic pride - they look after their towns and cities much better than we do, and we could learn a lot - but French identity is easily as contested as that of Britain/England. Indeed they have large ethnic minority groups, from north Africa, who actively reject and detest "Frenchness", for some understandable historical reasons, in a way you don't get in Britain. We have different issues
Essentially, mass immigration has been a disastrous error for every country in Europe
America does it rather better, because it always was "the melting pot". Bit tough on the Navajo, tho
Did you actually READ MY POST?
It was - right there in the first sentence - about flying flags. You know, fabric things, flutter in the wind.
It is massively more common to see French and US flags flown in public in their countries than to see Union Jacks in ours.
I presumed you were making a larger, more interesting post about patriotism, rather than just "flags"
But if not, if your comment was myopically boring, and limited, I heartily apologise
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Even Rod Liddle wrote in this week's Fint Knapper Gazette that a country that is flying too many of its own flags all over the place is a sign of a country in trouble and short on confidence.
Which is true
What PB does not seem to understand is that maybe 35-40% of the country (possibly a lot more in the right context) simply do not give a fuck, any more, if you call them "racist", "gammons", "Nazis", whatever. They've heard it for fifty years, and they've been scorned for fifty years, and they've been ignored, in terms of their views on mass immigration for the same fifty years, and as a result their towns, cities and country have been transformed in a way they not only did not vote for, but expressly voted AGAINST
The lies are now coming back to haunt the liars, and a bill is about to be presented. I prefer the German term. Die Rechnung
Not entirely surprised you prefer the German.
Droll
It is true tho, the German language is generally unpretty, and sometimes quite harsh, but on occasions that is an advantage
DIE RECHNUNG! is fabulous in its emphatic anger
I have long cherished an anecdote I heard, that the Italian police have to train their dogs in German, because dogs simply don't obey the fey mellifluous babble of orders in Italian, it sounds like someone reciting a nice menu. But if the dogs are told "SITZEN!!!" then they bloody well do it, in terror
Almost certainly untrue, but I will continue to believe it, coz
I love the comparisons of the Euro languages for Butterfly.
French - Papillon Italian - farfalla Spanish - Mariposa Portuguese - borboleta
And then the Germans come along and order what sounds like an instruction for a mass killing with a shout of “Schmeterling”.
What you wave yourself, what you run up a flagpole on your property, what you put in your window, that's up to you. There may be social consequences if it's the flags of our enemies, but that's as far as it goes. Otherwise, the more the merrier. (One of the things that the English always seem to have struggled with is overlapping identities, some of them shared and others not. See London vs. Essex here in Romford, or the British/European thing that caused and causes so much hassle in our relationship with the EU... it's largely a non-question elsewhere.)
And if there's a sense that life would be nicer with more flags, splendid. Let's work out how to pay to do it properly.
But if you co-opt lampposts as unoffical flagpoles without asking, that's vandalism. If you go round spray-painting scruffy red crosses everywhere, that's definitely vandalism. And that's not terribly British/English... is it?
Painting something is vandalism, but tying a flag to something is not, because it's not a permanent fixture. I believe that distinction is in law.
Yes, it was Mrs T who legislated against flags on lampposts.
Highways Act 1980. s132 A person who, without either the consent of the highway authority for the highway in question or an authorisation given by or under an enactment or a reasonable excuse, paints or otherwise inscribes or affixes any picture, letter, sign or other mark upon the surface of a highway or upon any tree, structure or works on or in a highway is guilty of an offence and liable to a fine not exceeding £100 or, in the case of a second or subsequent conviction under this subsection, to a fine not exceeding £200...
Doing so with cheap polyester numbers from China should be an aggravated offence, IMO.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Even Rod Liddle wrote in this week's Fint Knapper Gazette that a country that is flying too many of its own flags all over the place is a sign of a country in trouble and short on confidence.
Which is true
What PB does not seem to understand is that maybe 35-40% of the country (possibly a lot more in the right context) simply do not give a fuck, any more, if you call them "racist", "gammons", "Nazis", whatever. They've heard it for fifty years, and they've been scorned for fifty years, and they've been ignored, in terms of their views on mass immigration for the same fifty years, and as a result their towns, cities and country have been transformed in a way they not only did not vote for, but expressly voted AGAINST
The lies are now coming back to haunt the liars, and a bill is about to be presented. I prefer the German term. Die Rechnung
Not entirely surprised you prefer the German.
Droll
It is true tho, the German language is generally unpretty, and sometimes quite harsh, but on occasions that is an advantage
DIE RECHNUNG! is fabulous in its emphatic anger
I have long cherished an anecdote I heard, that the Italian police have to train their dogs in German, because dogs simply don't obey the fey mellifluous babble of orders in Italian, it sounds like someone reciting a nice menu. But if the dogs are told "SITZEN!!!" then they bloody well do it, in terror
Almost certainly untrue, but I will continue to believe it, coz
I love the comparisons of the Euro languages for Butterfly.
French - Papillon Italian - farfalla Spanish - Mariposa Portuguese - borboleta
And then the Germans come along and order what sounds like an instruction for a mass killing with a shout of “Schmeterling”.
To be fair to the Germans, their language is rather agreeable compared to the harshness of Dutch, and positively lyrical compared to the Nordic tongue, Which are quite remarkably ugly. Danish, my God, its like a mixture of burping and barking, with a dash of yodel
Mandarin Chinese is nearly as abrasive
Danish is problematic. The amount of times I’ve been introduced to beautiful Danish women and they start talking and sound like a cow being fed into a wood chipper.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Even Rod Liddle wrote in this week's Fint Knapper Gazette that a country that is flying too many of its own flags all over the place is a sign of a country in trouble and short on confidence.
Which is true
What PB does not seem to understand is that maybe 35-40% of the country (possibly a lot more in the right context) simply do not give a fuck, any more, if you call them "racist", "gammons", "Nazis", whatever. They've heard it for fifty years, and they've been scorned for fifty years, and they've been ignored, in terms of their views on mass immigration for the same fifty years, and as a result their towns, cities and country have been transformed in a way they not only did not vote for, but expressly voted AGAINST
The lies are now coming back to haunt the liars, and a bill is about to be presented. I prefer the German term. Die Rechnung
Not entirely surprised you prefer the German.
Droll
It is true tho, the German language is generally unpretty, and sometimes quite harsh, but on occasions that is an advantage
DIE RECHNUNG! is fabulous in its emphatic anger
I have long cherished an anecdote I heard, that the Italian police have to train their dogs in German, because dogs simply don't obey the fey mellifluous babble of orders in Italian, it sounds like someone reciting a nice menu. But if the dogs are told "SITZEN!!!" then they bloody well do it, in terror
Almost certainly untrue, but I will continue to believe it, coz
I love the comparisons of the Euro languages for Butterfly.
French - Papillon Italian - farfalla Spanish - Mariposa Portuguese - borboleta
And then the Germans come along and order what sounds like an instruction for a mass killing with a shout of “Schmeterling”.
To be fair to the Germans, their language is rather agreeable compared to the harshness of Dutch, and positively lyrical compared to the Nordic tongues. Which are quite remarkably ugly. Danish, my God, its like a mixture of burping and barking, with a dash of yodel
Mandarin Chinese is nearly as abrasive
Swedish is tonal and much more mellifluous, without the glottal stops of Danish. Dutch has even more throat-clearing noises than German, but I think the Belgian varieties sound nicer than the Netherlandish.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Interesting. So are you claiming the Scots have an inferiority complex?
Those flying a Saltire in their gardens? I think that's at least part of it, yes.
The thing about the English (and I guess the UK as whole) is that they have not had a revolution and they haven't overthrown an oppressor, so they don't need to define themselves against one in the same way as the Americans, the Scottish, the Welsh, the French etc do.
The one thing they can cling to is the Norman Invasion, hence the febrile fascination with Anglo-Saxons. Godwinson's flag was a white soldier on a red field, if anyone is looking for ideas...
Speaking of which the new BBC drama on the Norman Conquest has just finished its first episode on BBC1 focusing on the lead up to Edward the Confessor's coronation
Which is getting dreadful reviews. Shame, it's such a good story as told by the Rest is History.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Even Rod Liddle wrote in this week's Fint Knapper Gazette that a country that is flying too many of its own flags all over the place is a sign of a country in trouble and short on confidence.
Which is true
What PB does not seem to understand is that maybe 35-40% of the country (possibly a lot more in the right context) simply do not give a fuck, any more, if you call them "racist", "gammons", "Nazis", whatever. They've heard it for fifty years, and they've been scorned for fifty years, and they've been ignored, in terms of their views on mass immigration for the same fifty years, and as a result their towns, cities and country have been transformed in a way they not only did not vote for, but expressly voted AGAINST
The lies are now coming back to haunt the liars, and a bill is about to be presented. I prefer the German term. Die Rechnung
Not entirely surprised you prefer the German.
Droll
It is true tho, the German language is generally unpretty, and sometimes quite harsh, but on occasions that is an advantage
DIE RECHNUNG! is fabulous in its emphatic anger
I have long cherished an anecdote I heard, that the Italian police have to train their dogs in German, because dogs simply don't obey the fey mellifluous babble of orders in Italian, it sounds like someone reciting a nice menu. But if the dogs are told "SITZEN!!!" then they bloody well do it, in terror
Almost certainly untrue, but I will continue to believe it, coz
I love the comparisons of the Euro languages for Butterfly.
French - Papillon Italian - farfalla Spanish - Mariposa Portuguese - borboleta
And then the Germans come along and order what sounds like an instruction for a mass killing with a shout of “Schmeterling”.
To be fair to the Germans, their language is rather agreeable compared to the harshness of Dutch, and positively lyrical compared to the Nordic tongues. Which are quite remarkably ugly. Danish, my God, its like a mixture of burping and barking, with a dash of yodel
Mandarin Chinese is nearly as abrasive
Swedish is tonal and much more mellifluous, without thevglottal
Definitely softer and more tuneful but there is still a stiltedness when they speak English, like they are catching breath at weird points in a sentence.
What you wave yourself, what you run up a flagpole on your property, what you put in your window, that's up to you. There may be social consequences if it's the flags of our enemies, but that's as far as it goes. Otherwise, the more the merrier. (One of the things that the English always seem to have struggled with is overlapping identities, some of them shared and others not. See London vs. Essex here in Romford, or the British/European thing that caused and causes so much hassle in our relationship with the EU... it's largely a non-question elsewhere.)
And if there's a sense that life would be nicer with more flags, splendid. Let's work out how to pay to do it properly.
But if you co-opt lampposts as unoffical flagpoles without asking, that's vandalism. If you go round spray-painting scruffy red crosses everywhere, that's definitely vandalism. And that's not terribly British/English... is it?
Painting something is vandalism, but tying a flag to something is not, because it's not a permanent fixture. I believe that distinction is in law.
Yes, it was Mrs T who legislated against flags on lampposts.
Highways Act 1980. s132 A person who, without either the consent of the highway authority for the highway in question or an authorisation given by or under an enactment or a reasonable excuse, paints or otherwise inscribes or affixes any picture, letter, sign or other mark upon the surface of a highway or upon any tree, structure or works on or in a highway is guilty of an offence and liable to a fine not exceeding £100 or, in the case of a second or subsequent conviction under this subsection, to a fine not exceeding £200...
Doing so with cheap polyester numbers from China should be an aggravated offence, IMO.
And ones which arrive folded into A6 or so, and are unfolded but not ironed, so you can tell.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Even Rod Liddle wrote in this week's Fint Knapper Gazette that a country that is flying too many of its own flags all over the place is a sign of a country in trouble and short on confidence.
Which is true
What PB does not seem to understand is that maybe 35-40% of the country (possibly a lot more in the right context) simply do not give a fuck, any more, if you call them "racist", "gammons", "Nazis", whatever. They've heard it for fifty years, and they've been scorned for fifty years, and they've been ignored, in terms of their views on mass immigration for the same fifty years, and as a result their towns, cities and country have been transformed in a way they not only did not vote for, but expressly voted AGAINST
The lies are now coming back to haunt the liars, and a bill is about to be presented. I prefer the German term. Die Rechnung
Not entirely surprised you prefer the German.
Droll
It is true tho, the German language is generally unpretty, and sometimes quite harsh, but on occasions that is an advantage
DIE RECHNUNG! is fabulous in its emphatic anger
I have long cherished an anecdote I heard, that the Italian police have to train their dogs in German, because dogs simply don't obey the fey mellifluous babble of orders in Italian, it sounds like someone reciting a nice menu. But if the dogs are told "SITZEN!!!" then they bloody well do it, in terror
Almost certainly untrue, but I will continue to believe it, coz
I love the comparisons of the Euro languages for Butterfly.
French - Papillon Italian - farfalla Spanish - Mariposa Portuguese - borboleta
And then the Germans come along and order what sounds like an instruction for a mass killing with a shout of “Schmeterling”.
How you feel about the sound of a language is mostly about how you feel about the speakers of the language, rather than a preference for particular sounds.
Even in your example "Schmetterling" is quite a similar collection of sounds to "butterfly". "Schmetten" means cream (like smetana) so the meaning is also connected. Buttervogel is an old German word for butterfly.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Even Rod Liddle wrote in this week's Fint Knapper Gazette that a country that is flying too many of its own flags all over the place is a sign of a country in trouble and short on confidence.
Which is true
What PB does not seem to understand is that maybe 35-40% of the country (possibly a lot more in the right context) simply do not give a fuck, any more, if you call them "racist", "gammons", "Nazis", whatever. They've heard it for fifty years, and they've been scorned for fifty years, and they've been ignored, in terms of their views on mass immigration for the same fifty years, and as a result their towns, cities and country have been transformed in a way they not only did not vote for, but expressly voted AGAINST
The lies are now coming back to haunt the liars, and a bill is about to be presented. I prefer the German term. Die Rechnung
Not entirely surprised you prefer the German.
Droll
It is true tho, the German language is generally unpretty, and sometimes quite harsh, but on occasions that is an advantage
DIE RECHNUNG! is fabulous in its emphatic anger
I have long cherished an anecdote I heard, that the Italian police have to train their dogs in German, because dogs simply don't obey the fey mellifluous babble of orders in Italian, it sounds like someone reciting a nice menu. But if the dogs are told "SITZEN!!!" then they bloody well do it, in terror
Almost certainly untrue, but I will continue to believe it, coz
I love the comparisons of the Euro languages for Butterfly.
French - Papillon Italian - farfalla Spanish - Mariposa Portuguese - borboleta
And then the Germans come along and order what sounds like an instruction for a mass killing with a shout of “Schmeterling”.
To be fair to the Germans, their language is rather agreeable compared to the harshness of Dutch, and positively lyrical compared to the Nordic tongues. Which are quite remarkably ugly. Danish, my God, its like a mixture of burping and barking, with a dash of yodel
Mandarin Chinese is nearly as abrasive
The "official" news reader accent of Beijing is harsh. Taiwan accent is lovely and soft. It's a bit like German/French in listening.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Even Rod Liddle wrote in this week's Fint Knapper Gazette that a country that is flying too many of its own flags all over the place is a sign of a country in trouble and short on confidence.
Which is true
What PB does not seem to understand is that maybe 35-40% of the country (possibly a lot more in the right context) simply do not give a fuck, any more, if you call them "racist", "gammons", "Nazis", whatever. They've heard it for fifty years, and they've been scorned for fifty years, and they've been ignored, in terms of their views on mass immigration for the same fifty years, and as a result their towns, cities and country have been transformed in a way they not only did not vote for, but expressly voted AGAINST
The lies are now coming back to haunt the liars, and a bill is about to be presented. I prefer the German term. Die Rechnung
Not entirely surprised you prefer the German.
Droll
It is true tho, the German language is generally unpretty, and sometimes quite harsh, but on occasions that is an advantage
DIE RECHNUNG! is fabulous in its emphatic anger
I have long cherished an anecdote I heard, that the Italian police have to train their dogs in German, because dogs simply don't obey the fey mellifluous babble of orders in Italian, it sounds like someone reciting a nice menu. But if the dogs are told "SITZEN!!!" then they bloody well do it, in terror
Almost certainly untrue, but I will continue to believe it, coz
I love the comparisons of the Euro languages for Butterfly.
French - Papillon Italian - farfalla Spanish - Mariposa Portuguese - borboleta
And then the Germans come along and order what sounds like an instruction for a mass killing with a shout of “Schmeterling”.
To be fair to the Germans, their language is rather agreeable compared to the harshness of Dutch, and positively lyrical compared to the Nordic tongue, Which are quite remarkably ugly. Danish, my God, its like a mixture of burping and barking, with a dash of yodel
Mandarin Chinese is nearly as abrasive
Danish is problematic. The amount of times I’ve been introduced to beautiful Danish women and they start talking and sound like a cow being fed into a wood chipper.
Haha. Yes, me too, same experience, and it really is quite off putting
It's a bit similar to the way gorgeous Slavic women from Eastern Europe - Ukraine, Croatia, Russia - apparently find it impossible to smile. They are often stunning, yet they always scowl at you like they've just remembered you killed the family pet. A smile is a rare and impossible treasure
I've heard various explanations for this - because it is a definite thing. Whatever the explanation, it is a damn shame
Maybe God did it to balance things out. Make THESE people beautiful but also dour. Make THEM blonde and blue eyed but they sound like strangled ducks
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Even Rod Liddle wrote in this week's Fint Knapper Gazette that a country that is flying too many of its own flags all over the place is a sign of a country in trouble and short on confidence.
Which is true
What PB does not seem to understand is that maybe 35-40% of the country (possibly a lot more in the right context) simply do not give a fuck, any more, if you call them "racist", "gammons", "Nazis", whatever. They've heard it for fifty years, and they've been scorned for fifty years, and they've been ignored, in terms of their views on mass immigration for the same fifty years, and as a result their towns, cities and country have been transformed in a way they not only did not vote for, but expressly voted AGAINST
The lies are now coming back to haunt the liars, and a bill is about to be presented. I prefer the German term. Die Rechnung
Not entirely surprised you prefer the German.
Droll
It is true tho, the German language is generally unpretty, and sometimes quite harsh, but on occasions that is an advantage
DIE RECHNUNG! is fabulous in its emphatic anger
I have long cherished an anecdote I heard, that the Italian police have to train their dogs in German, because dogs simply don't obey the fey mellifluous babble of orders in Italian, it sounds like someone reciting a nice menu. But if the dogs are told "SITZEN!!!" then they bloody well do it, in terror
Almost certainly untrue, but I will continue to believe it, coz
I love the comparisons of the Euro languages for Butterfly.
French - Papillon Italian - farfalla Spanish - Mariposa Portuguese - borboleta
And then the Germans come along and order what sounds like an instruction for a mass killing with a shout of “Schmeterling”.
How you feel about the sound of a language is mostly about how you feel about the speakers of the language, rather than a preference for particular sounds.
Even in your example "Schmetterling" is quite a similar collection of sounds to "butterfly". "Schmetten" means cream (like smetana) so the meaning is also connected. Buttervogel is an old German word for butterfly.
It’s really not for me, can’t speak for your attitudes though.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Interesting. So are you claiming the Scots have an inferiority complex?
Those flying a Saltire in their gardens? I think that's at least part of it, yes.
The thing about the English (and I guess the UK as whole) is that they have not had a revolution and they haven't overthrown an oppressor, so they don't need to define themselves against one in the same way as the Americans, the Scottish, the Welsh, the French etc do.
The one thing they can cling to is the Norman Invasion, hence the febrile fascination with Anglo-Saxons. Godwinson's flag was a white soldier on a red field, if anyone is looking for ideas...
Speaking of which the new BBC drama on the Norman Conquest has just finished its first episode on BBC1 focusing on the lead up to Edward the Confessor's coronation
Which is getting dreadful reviews. Shame, it's such a good story as told by the Rest is History.
I'll give it a go tomorrow.
I don’t think the BBC have it in them to make good drama anymore. You hear BBC and you know it’s going to be crap. I’m open to counter-arguments.
It’s sad, I pretty much grew up on “prestige British drama”.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Even Rod Liddle wrote in this week's Fint Knapper Gazette that a country that is flying too many of its own flags all over the place is a sign of a country in trouble and short on confidence.
Which is true
What PB does not seem to understand is that maybe 35-40% of the country (possibly a lot more in the right context) simply do not give a fuck, any more, if you call them "racist", "gammons", "Nazis", whatever. They've heard it for fifty years, and they've been scorned for fifty years, and they've been ignored, in terms of their views on mass immigration for the same fifty years, and as a result their towns, cities and country have been transformed in a way they not only did not vote for, but expressly voted AGAINST
The lies are now coming back to haunt the liars, and a bill is about to be presented. I prefer the German term. Die Rechnung
Not entirely surprised you prefer the German.
Droll
It is true tho, the German language is generally unpretty, and sometimes quite harsh, but on occasions that is an advantage
DIE RECHNUNG! is fabulous in its emphatic anger
I have long cherished an anecdote I heard, that the Italian police have to train their dogs in German, because dogs simply don't obey the fey mellifluous babble of orders in Italian, it sounds like someone reciting a nice menu. But if the dogs are told "SITZEN!!!" then they bloody well do it, in terror
Almost certainly untrue, but I will continue to believe it, coz
I love the comparisons of the Euro languages for Butterfly.
French - Papillon Italian - farfalla Spanish - Mariposa Portuguese - borboleta
And then the Germans come along and order what sounds like an instruction for a mass killing with a shout of “Schmeterling”.
How you feel about the sound of a language is mostly about how you feel about the speakers of the language, rather than a preference for particular sounds.
Even in your example "Schmetterling" is quite a similar collection of sounds to "butterfly". "Schmetten" means cream (like smetana) so the meaning is also connected. Buttervogel is an old German word for butterfly.
It's simply not true, but you go on believing it
Danish IS ugly, German IS harsh, Russian IS darkly poetic, etc
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Even Rod Liddle wrote in this week's Fint Knapper Gazette that a country that is flying too many of its own flags all over the place is a sign of a country in trouble and short on confidence.
Which is true
What PB does not seem to understand is that maybe 35-40% of the country (possibly a lot more in the right context) simply do not give a fuck, any more, if you call them "racist", "gammons", "Nazis", whatever. They've heard it for fifty years, and they've been scorned for fifty years, and they've been ignored, in terms of their views on mass immigration for the same fifty years, and as a result their towns, cities and country have been transformed in a way they not only did not vote for, but expressly voted AGAINST
The lies are now coming back to haunt the liars, and a bill is about to be presented. I prefer the German term. Die Rechnung
Not entirely surprised you prefer the German.
Droll
It is true tho, the German language is generally unpretty, and sometimes quite harsh, but on occasions that is an advantage
DIE RECHNUNG! is fabulous in its emphatic anger
I have long cherished an anecdote I heard, that the Italian police have to train their dogs in German, because dogs simply don't obey the fey mellifluous babble of orders in Italian, it sounds like someone reciting a nice menu. But if the dogs are told "SITZEN!!!" then they bloody well do it, in terror
Almost certainly untrue, but I will continue to believe it, coz
I love the comparisons of the Euro languages for Butterfly.
French - Papillon Italian - farfalla Spanish - Mariposa Portuguese - borboleta
And then the Germans come along and order what sounds like an instruction for a mass killing with a shout of “Schmeterling”.
To be fair to the Germans, their language is rather agreeable compared to the harshness of Dutch, and positively lyrical compared to the Nordic tongue, Which are quite remarkably ugly. Danish, my God, its like a mixture of burping and barking, with a dash of yodel
Mandarin Chinese is nearly as abrasive
Danish is problematic. The amount of times I’ve been introduced to beautiful Danish women and they start talking and sound like a cow being fed into a wood chipper.
Haha. Yes, me too, same experience, and it really is quite off putting
It's a bit similar to the way gorgeous Slavic women from Eastern Europe - Ukraine, Croatia, Russia - apparently find it impossible to smile. They are often stunning, yet they always scowl at you like they've just remembered you killed the family pet. A smile is a rare and impossible treasure
I've heard various explanations for this - because it is a definite thing. Whatever the explanation, it is a damn shame
Maybe God did it to balance things out. Make THESE people beautiful but also dour. Make THEM blonde and blue eyed but they sound like strangled ducks
Yes, my only wife from a million years ago was an impossibly beautiful Slav and rationed smiling fiercely. I thought it was just because I never made me smile but I eventually realised she was like it with everyone. I got the odd upturned lips when I bought her expensive things so I knew it wasn’t a physical impairment.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Even Rod Liddle wrote in this week's Fint Knapper Gazette that a country that is flying too many of its own flags all over the place is a sign of a country in trouble and short on confidence.
Which is true
What PB does not seem to understand is that maybe 35-40% of the country (possibly a lot more in the right context) simply do not give a fuck, any more, if you call them "racist", "gammons", "Nazis", whatever. They've heard it for fifty years, and they've been scorned for fifty years, and they've been ignored, in terms of their views on mass immigration for the same fifty years, and as a result their towns, cities and country have been transformed in a way they not only did not vote for, but expressly voted AGAINST
The lies are now coming back to haunt the liars, and a bill is about to be presented. I prefer the German term. Die Rechnung
Not entirely surprised you prefer the German.
Droll
It is true tho, the German language is generally unpretty, and sometimes quite harsh, but on occasions that is an advantage
DIE RECHNUNG! is fabulous in its emphatic anger
I have long cherished an anecdote I heard, that the Italian police have to train their dogs in German, because dogs simply don't obey the fey mellifluous babble of orders in Italian, it sounds like someone reciting a nice menu. But if the dogs are told "SITZEN!!!" then they bloody well do it, in terror
Almost certainly untrue, but I will continue to believe it, coz
I love the comparisons of the Euro languages for Butterfly.
French - Papillon Italian - farfalla Spanish - Mariposa Portuguese - borboleta
And then the Germans come along and order what sounds like an instruction for a mass killing with a shout of “Schmeterling”.
To be fair to the Germans, their language is rather agreeable compared to the harshness of Dutch, and positively lyrical compared to the Nordic tongue, Which are quite remarkably ugly. Danish, my God, its like a mixture of burping and barking, with a dash of yodel
Mandarin Chinese is nearly as abrasive
Danish is problematic. The amount of times I’ve been introduced to beautiful Danish women and they start talking and sound like a cow being fed into a wood chipper.
Haha. Yes, me too, same experience, and it really is quite off putting
It's a bit similar to the way gorgeous Slavic women from Eastern Europe - Ukraine, Croatia, Russia - apparently find it impossible to smile. They are often stunning, yet they always scowl at you like they've just remembered you killed the family pet. A smile is a rare and impossible treasure
I've heard various explanations for this - because it is a definite thing. Whatever the explanation, it is a damn shame
Maybe God did it to balance things out. Make THESE people beautiful but also dour. Make THEM blonde and blue eyed but they sound like strangled ducks
Ukrainian sounds nicer than Russian, it doesn't have the heavy stress pattern (actually not really a pattern, stress is fairly random in Russian) and often v is softened to w. Also doesn't have the nasty consonant clusters of Polish (I think it was Len Deighton who said that speaking Polish was like sticking your tongue in a jar of rusty razor blades). Having said that, I can understand Russian better than either as that's what I learnt.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Interesting. So are you claiming the Scots have an inferiority complex?
Those flying a Saltire in their gardens? I think that's at least part of it, yes.
The thing about the English (and I guess the UK as whole) is that they have not had a revolution and they haven't overthrown an oppressor, so they don't need to define themselves against one in the same way as the Americans, the Scottish, the Welsh, the French etc do.
The one thing they can cling to is the Norman Invasion, hence the febrile fascination with Anglo-Saxons. Godwinson's flag was a white soldier on a red field, if anyone is looking for ideas...
Speaking of which the new BBC drama on the Norman Conquest has just finished its first episode on BBC1 focusing on the lead up to Edward the Confessor's coronation
Which is getting dreadful reviews. Shame, it's such a good story as told by the Rest is History.
I'll give it a go tomorrow.
I don’t think the BBC have it in them to make good drama anymore. You hear BBC and you know it’s going to be crap. I’m open to counter-arguments.
It’s sad, I pretty much grew up on “prestige British drama”.
It does occasionally happen
Peaky Blinders is good, at least in the first couple of seasons. SAS Rogue Heroes is really entertaining in an unWoke way
Noticeably both written by the same guy: Steven Knight
But yes in general a notable decline. On the other hand, British drama co-pros and British TV talent in general is stil making magnificent TV. Much of Succession is British, from the actors to the writers. Indeed I just saw Brian Cox, coincidentally, eating dinner in Primrose Hill, about two hours ago. Looking pretty fit and spry for 79
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Even Rod Liddle wrote in this week's Fint Knapper Gazette that a country that is flying too many of its own flags all over the place is a sign of a country in trouble and short on confidence.
Which is true
What PB does not seem to understand is that maybe 35-40% of the country (possibly a lot more in the right context) simply do not give a fuck, any more, if you call them "racist", "gammons", "Nazis", whatever. They've heard it for fifty years, and they've been scorned for fifty years, and they've been ignored, in terms of their views on mass immigration for the same fifty years, and as a result their towns, cities and country have been transformed in a way they not only did not vote for, but expressly voted AGAINST
The lies are now coming back to haunt the liars, and a bill is about to be presented. I prefer the German term. Die Rechnung
Not entirely surprised you prefer the German.
Droll
It is true tho, the German language is generally unpretty, and sometimes quite harsh, but on occasions that is an advantage
DIE RECHNUNG! is fabulous in its emphatic anger
I have long cherished an anecdote I heard, that the Italian police have to train their dogs in German, because dogs simply don't obey the fey mellifluous babble of orders in Italian, it sounds like someone reciting a nice menu. But if the dogs are told "SITZEN!!!" then they bloody well do it, in terror
Almost certainly untrue, but I will continue to believe it, coz
I love the comparisons of the Euro languages for Butterfly.
French - Papillon Italian - farfalla Spanish - Mariposa Portuguese - borboleta
And then the Germans come along and order what sounds like an instruction for a mass killing with a shout of “Schmeterling”.
To be fair to the Germans, their language is rather agreeable compared to the harshness of Dutch, and positively lyrical compared to the Nordic tongues. Which are quite remarkably ugly. Danish, my God, its like a mixture of burping and barking, with a dash of yodel
Mandarin Chinese is nearly as abrasive
The "official" news reader accent of Beijing is harsh. Taiwan accent is lovely and soft. It's a bit like German/French in listening.
My aural nightmare is tuning into the Today programme on a day it is being hosted by Lyse Doucet just as she’s handing over to Mariko Oi for a business brief and then a handover to Vikki Sparks to shout about the sport. Brutal sounds.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Even Rod Liddle wrote in this week's Fint Knapper Gazette that a country that is flying too many of its own flags all over the place is a sign of a country in trouble and short on confidence.
Which is true
What PB does not seem to understand is that maybe 35-40% of the country (possibly a lot more in the right context) simply do not give a fuck, any more, if you call them "racist", "gammons", "Nazis", whatever. They've heard it for fifty years, and they've been scorned for fifty years, and they've been ignored, in terms of their views on mass immigration for the same fifty years, and as a result their towns, cities and country have been transformed in a way they not only did not vote for, but expressly voted AGAINST
The lies are now coming back to haunt the liars, and a bill is about to be presented. I prefer the German term. Die Rechnung
Not entirely surprised you prefer the German.
Droll
It is true tho, the German language is generally unpretty, and sometimes quite harsh, but on occasions that is an advantage
DIE RECHNUNG! is fabulous in its emphatic anger
I have long cherished an anecdote I heard, that the Italian police have to train their dogs in German, because dogs simply don't obey the fey mellifluous babble of orders in Italian, it sounds like someone reciting a nice menu. But if the dogs are told "SITZEN!!!" then they bloody well do it, in terror
Almost certainly untrue, but I will continue to believe it, coz
I love the comparisons of the Euro languages for Butterfly.
French - Papillon Italian - farfalla Spanish - Mariposa Portuguese - borboleta
And then the Germans come along and order what sounds like an instruction for a mass killing with a shout of “Schmeterling”.
To be fair to the Germans, their language is rather agreeable compared to the harshness of Dutch, and positively lyrical compared to the Nordic tongue, Which are quite remarkably ugly. Danish, my God, its like a mixture of burping and barking, with a dash of yodel
Mandarin Chinese is nearly as abrasive
Danish is problematic. The amount of times I’ve been introduced to beautiful Danish women and they start talking and sound like a cow being fed into a wood chipper.
Haha. Yes, me too, same experience, and it really is quite off putting
It's a bit similar to the way gorgeous Slavic women from Eastern Europe - Ukraine, Croatia, Russia - apparently find it impossible to smile. They are often stunning, yet they always scowl at you like they've just remembered you killed the family pet. A smile is a rare and impossible treasure
I've heard various explanations for this - because it is a definite thing. Whatever the explanation, it is a damn shame
Maybe God did it to balance things out. Make THESE people beautiful but also dour. Make THEM blonde and blue eyed but they sound like strangled ducks
Yes, my only wife from a million years ago was an impossibly beautiful Slav and rationed smiling fiercely. I thought it was just because I never made me smile but I eventually realised she was like it with everyone. I got the odd upturned lips when I bought her expensive things so I knew it wasn’t a physical impairment.
It's a real social handicap, the inability/reluctance to smile, and it is shared across most of the Slavic cultures
It's too late on a hard working day to go into the explanations - various - but they are interesting
But yes it really does make things harder for them. Smiles are effective, they charm people, a well placed and dazzling smile can work wonders. It cheers you up and brightens the world, it makes plain people seem pretty and boring people come across as nice
If your life is a constant scowl, then in the end you get scowls back
What you wave yourself, what you run up a flagpole on your property, what you put in your window, that's up to you. There may be social consequences if it's the flags of our enemies, but that's as far as it goes. Otherwise, the more the merrier. (One of the things that the English always seem to have struggled with is overlapping identities, some of them shared and others not. See London vs. Essex here in Romford, or the British/European thing that caused and causes so much hassle in our relationship with the EU... it's largely a non-question elsewhere.)
And if there's a sense that life would be nicer with more flags, splendid. Let's work out how to pay to do it properly.
But if you co-opt lampposts as unoffical flagpoles without asking, that's vandalism. If you go round spray-painting scruffy red crosses everywhere, that's definitely vandalism. And that's not terribly British/English... is it?
Painting something is vandalism, but tying a flag to something is not, because it's not a permanent fixture. I believe that distinction is in law.
Yes, it was Mrs T who legislated against flags on lampposts.
Highways Act 1980. s132 A person who, without either the consent of the highway authority for the highway in question or an authorisation given by or under an enactment or a reasonable excuse, paints or otherwise inscribes or affixes any picture, letter, sign or other mark upon the surface of a highway or upon any tree, structure or works on or in a highway is guilty of an offence and liable to a fine not exceeding £100 or, in the case of a second or subsequent conviction under this subsection, to a fine not exceeding £200...
Doing so with cheap polyester numbers from China should be an aggravated offence, IMO.
Also: lampposts aren't built to carry flags in the wind. Karman vortex streets increased in amplitude, increased fatigue with time. How much more, I'm not sure, but it doesn't do them any good.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Even Rod Liddle wrote in this week's Fint Knapper Gazette that a country that is flying too many of its own flags all over the place is a sign of a country in trouble and short on confidence.
Which is true
What PB does not seem to understand is that maybe 35-40% of the country (possibly a lot more in the right context) simply do not give a fuck, any more, if you call them "racist", "gammons", "Nazis", whatever. They've heard it for fifty years, and they've been scorned for fifty years, and they've been ignored, in terms of their views on mass immigration for the same fifty years, and as a result their towns, cities and country have been transformed in a way they not only did not vote for, but expressly voted AGAINST
The lies are now coming back to haunt the liars, and a bill is about to be presented. I prefer the German term. Die Rechnung
Not entirely surprised you prefer the German.
Droll
It is true tho, the German language is generally unpretty, and sometimes quite harsh, but on occasions that is an advantage
DIE RECHNUNG! is fabulous in its emphatic anger
I have long cherished an anecdote I heard, that the Italian police have to train their dogs in German, because dogs simply don't obey the fey mellifluous babble of orders in Italian, it sounds like someone reciting a nice menu. But if the dogs are told "SITZEN!!!" then they bloody well do it, in terror
Almost certainly untrue, but I will continue to believe it, coz
I love the comparisons of the Euro languages for Butterfly.
French - Papillon Italian - farfalla Spanish - Mariposa Portuguese - borboleta
And then the Germans come along and order what sounds like an instruction for a mass killing with a shout of “Schmeterling”.
How you feel about the sound of a language is mostly about how you feel about the speakers of the language, rather than a preference for particular sounds.
Even in your example "Schmetterling" is quite a similar collection of sounds to "butterfly". "Schmetten" means cream (like smetana) so the meaning is also connected. Buttervogel is an old German word for butterfly.
It’s really not for me, can’t speak for your attitudes though.
I'm just going by you saying the word "Schmetterling" conjures up for you the sound of an order for a mass killing. There's nothing in the actual sounds in the word that have anything to do with that. You seem to be unaware of this. My conclusion is that you, unconsciously or not, associate Germans with giving orders for mass killings. It's not unusual.
How do you like, say, American accents on digital assistants, for example?
York. I thought it was one of those genteel slightly Hyacinth Bouquet meets Alan Bennett Yorkshire towns like Wetherby or Harrogate. But no, from this weekend’s evidence it’s very much a city of “the people”.
Tattier than its sibling Canterbury, most surprisingly. And humming with 21st century chain nightlife. Within a 5 minute walk of my Airbnb there’s a Slug & Lettuce, O’Neills, Yates’s wine lodge, and a Pitcher & Piano. Brands I thought had died a decade or more ago. Not to mention “Lil’s on the waterfront”, “plonkers”, “the stone roses bar”, “Valhalla” and a whole panoply of other venues, filled with the dolled up and lagered up party animals of North Yorkshire. Who’d have thought it?
Isn’t this though the English being the English. We have this false image of us from Victorian history and Edwardian times of being polite and mannered but that was the history of the upper to aspirant middle classes. You look at the rest of English history from Georgian back and we are a wild, drunken, unruly mob. It was very useful when establishing defence or taking over other countries to have wonderful drunken hooligans as a majority of the population.
We are individualistic - I feel this is shown in our lack of the family structure when it comes to looking after the old and sending our finest to boarding school.
We are a wild, Northern, irreligious lot. We drink, fight, shag.
We aren’t the Victorian English but we are the English of Beowulf, the fights a drunkenness in Chaucer and Shakespeare. You look at the violence of riots at the Public Schools and the universities.
We are magnificently uncouth in many ways.
We could do with being more Victorian, Britain reached its greatest heights in global history with Victorian values and have declined since
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Interesting. So are you claiming the Scots have an inferiority complex?
Those flying a Saltire in their gardens? I think that's at least part of it, yes.
The thing about the English (and I guess the UK as whole) is that they have not had a revolution and they haven't overthrown an oppressor, so they don't need to define themselves against one in the same way as the Americans, the Scottish, the Welsh, the French etc do.
The one thing they can cling to is the Norman Invasion, hence the febrile fascination with Anglo-Saxons. Godwinson's flag was a white soldier on a red field, if anyone is looking for ideas...
Speaking of which the new BBC drama on the Norman Conquest has just finished its first episode on BBC1 focusing on the lead up to Edward the Confessor's coronation
Which is getting dreadful reviews. Shame, it's such a good story as told by the Rest is History.
I'll give it a go tomorrow.
I don’t think the BBC have it in them to make good drama anymore. You hear BBC and you know it’s going to be crap. I’m open to counter-arguments.
It’s sad, I pretty much grew up on “prestige British drama”.
The decline in radio drama is very pronounced. Which you'd have thought would hold up given how cheap it is compared to the telly.
There used to be a torrent site that hosted old UK radio drama's which the BBC and other UK radio broadcasters didn't make available. Lots of old recordings people had made to their own tapes in the 60s and 70s. Quite a treasure trove.
Then the beeb (as I understand it) threatened them with the legals. And the owner shut it all down. Then the beeb said even though they had the recordings, they weren't "broadcast quality" so wouldn't make them available.
So - all lost to us, the people who paid for it in the first place. And some lost altogether as the broadcasters are gone.
Still, top work by the legal departments. Bonuses all round.
York. I thought it was one of those genteel slightly Hyacinth Bouquet meets Alan Bennett Yorkshire towns like Wetherby or Harrogate. But no, from this weekend’s evidence it’s very much a city of “the people”.
Tattier than its sibling Canterbury, most surprisingly. And humming with 21st century chain nightlife. Within a 5 minute walk of my Airbnb there’s a Slug & Lettuce, O’Neills, Yates’s wine lodge, and a Pitcher & Piano. Brands I thought had died a decade or more ago. Not to mention “Lil’s on the waterfront”, “plonkers”, “the stone roses bar”, “Valhalla” and a whole panoply of other venues, filled with the dolled up and lagered up party animals of North Yorkshire. Who’d have thought it?
Isn’t this though the English being the English. We have this false image of us from Victorian history and Edwardian times of being polite and mannered but that was the history of the upper to aspirant middle classes. You look at the rest of English history from Georgian back and we are a wild, drunken, unruly mob. It was very useful when establishing defence or taking over other countries to have wonderful drunken hooligans as a majority of the population.
We are individualistic - I feel this is shown in our lack of the family structure when it comes to looking after the old and sending our finest to boarding school.
We are a wild, Northern, irreligious lot. We drink, fight, shag.
We aren’t the Victorian English but we are the English of Beowulf, the fights a drunkenness in Chaucer and Shakespeare. You look at the violence of riots at the Public Schools and the universities.
We are magnificently uncouth in many ways.
We could do with being more Victorian, Britain reached its greatest heights in global history with Victorian values and have declined since
The age of some of the workers in the brothels? You think that was the height of Britain? Let alone the life expectancy of those who didn't go to grammar school.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Interesting. So are you claiming the Scots have an inferiority complex?
Those flying a Saltire in their gardens? I think that's at least part of it, yes.
The thing about the English (and I guess the UK as whole) is that they have not had a revolution and they haven't overthrown an oppressor, so they don't need to define themselves against one in the same way as the Americans, the Scottish, the Welsh, the French etc do.
The one thing they can cling to is the Norman Invasion, hence the febrile fascination with Anglo-Saxons. Godwinson's flag was a white soldier on a red field, if anyone is looking for ideas...
Speaking of which the new BBC drama on the Norman Conquest has just finished its first episode on BBC1 focusing on the lead up to Edward the Confessor's coronation
Which is getting dreadful reviews. Shame, it's such a good story as told by the Rest is History.
I'll give it a go tomorrow.
I don’t think the BBC have it in them to make good drama anymore. You hear BBC and you know it’s going to be crap. I’m open to counter-arguments.
It’s sad, I pretty much grew up on “prestige British drama”.
Something this intriguing needed the Wolf Hall (series 1) treatment. Just do the politics in an impossibly serious way, otherwise it's too like The Last Kingdom.
(I haven't actually seen it yet, just guessing it's going to be OTT on the bants and the battles).
"Following the UK’s departure from the European Union, the flag of the European Union is no longer included in the list of flags that do not require consent."
York. I thought it was one of those genteel slightly Hyacinth Bouquet meets Alan Bennett Yorkshire towns like Wetherby or Harrogate. But no, from this weekend’s evidence it’s very much a city of “the people”.
Tattier than its sibling Canterbury, most surprisingly. And humming with 21st century chain nightlife. Within a 5 minute walk of my Airbnb there’s a Slug & Lettuce, O’Neills, Yates’s wine lodge, and a Pitcher & Piano. Brands I thought had died a decade or more ago. Not to mention “Lil’s on the waterfront”, “plonkers”, “the stone roses bar”, “Valhalla” and a whole panoply of other venues, filled with the dolled up and lagered up party animals of North Yorkshire. Who’d have thought it?
Isn’t this though the English being the English. We have this false image of us from Victorian history and Edwardian times of being polite and mannered but that was the history of the upper to aspirant middle classes. You look at the rest of English history from Georgian back and we are a wild, drunken, unruly mob. It was very useful when establishing defence or taking over other countries to have wonderful drunken hooligans as a majority of the population.
We are individualistic - I feel this is shown in our lack of the family structure when it comes to looking after the old and sending our finest to boarding school.
We are a wild, Northern, irreligious lot. We drink, fight, shag.
We aren’t the Victorian English but we are the English of Beowulf, the fights a drunkenness in Chaucer and Shakespeare. You look at the violence of riots at the Public Schools and the universities.
We are magnificently uncouth in many ways.
We could do with being more Victorian, Britain reached its greatest heights in global history with Victorian values and have declined since
The age of some of the workers in the brothels? You think that was the height of Britain? Let alone the life expectancy of those who didn't go to grammar school.
The age in which we led the industrial revolution, new scientific discoveries and explorations, great novelists and painters and Gothic architecture and the greatest Empire the world has seen for good or ill.
Plus traditional family values where good manners and respectability were prized and uncouth behaviour frowned upon by polite society
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Interesting. So are you claiming the Scots have an inferiority complex?
Those flying a Saltire in their gardens? I think that's at least part of it, yes.
The thing about the English (and I guess the UK as whole) is that they have not had a revolution and they haven't overthrown an oppressor, so they don't need to define themselves against one in the same way as the Americans, the Scottish, the Welsh, the French etc do.
The one thing they can cling to is the Norman Invasion, hence the febrile fascination with Anglo-Saxons. Godwinson's flag was a white soldier on a red field, if anyone is looking for ideas...
Speaking of which the new BBC drama on the Norman Conquest has just finished its first episode on BBC1 focusing on the lead up to Edward the Confessor's coronation
Which is getting dreadful reviews. Shame, it's such a good story as told by the Rest is History.
I'll give it a go tomorrow.
I don’t think the BBC have it in them to make good drama anymore. You hear BBC and you know it’s going to be crap. I’m open to counter-arguments.
It’s sad, I pretty much grew up on “prestige British drama”.
Something this intriguing needed the Wolf Hall (series 1) treatment. Just do the politics in an impossibly serious way, otherwise it's too like The Last Kingdom.
(I haven't actually seen it yet, just guessing it's going to be OTT on the bants and the battles).
I thought it was fine set the scene with Emma of Normandy, the Godwinsons, Edward the Confessor and William of Normandy.
Followed the Excellent Narrow Road to the Deep North from the last few weeks too
York. I thought it was one of those genteel slightly Hyacinth Bouquet meets Alan Bennett Yorkshire towns like Wetherby or Harrogate. But no, from this weekend’s evidence it’s very much a city of “the people”.
Tattier than its sibling Canterbury, most surprisingly. And humming with 21st century chain nightlife. Within a 5 minute walk of my Airbnb there’s a Slug & Lettuce, O’Neills, Yates’s wine lodge, and a Pitcher & Piano. Brands I thought had died a decade or more ago. Not to mention “Lil’s on the waterfront”, “plonkers”, “the stone roses bar”, “Valhalla” and a whole panoply of other venues, filled with the dolled up and lagered up party animals of North Yorkshire. Who’d have thought it?
Isn’t this though the English being the English. We have this false image of us from Victorian history and Edwardian times of being polite and mannered but that was the history of the upper to aspirant middle classes. You look at the rest of English history from Georgian back and we are a wild, drunken, unruly mob. It was very useful when establishing defence or taking over other countries to have wonderful drunken hooligans as a majority of the population.
We are individualistic - I feel this is shown in our lack of the family structure when it comes to looking after the old and sending our finest to boarding school.
We are a wild, Northern, irreligious lot. We drink, fight, shag.
We aren’t the Victorian English but we are the English of Beowulf, the fights a drunkenness in Chaucer and Shakespeare. You look at the violence of riots at the Public Schools and the universities.
We are magnificently uncouth in many ways.
We could do with being more Victorian, Britain reached its greatest heights in global history with Victorian values and have declined since
The age of some of the workers in the brothels? You think that was the height of Britain? Let alone the life expectancy of those who didn't go to grammar school.
The age in which we led the industrial revolution, new scientific discoveries and explorations, great novelists and painters and Gothic architecture and the greatest Empire the world has seen for good or ill.
Plus traditional family values where good manners and respectability were prized and uncouth behaviour frowned upon by polite society
When life expectancy and wages and life experiences were crap compared to today.
This is the greatest Britain has ever been, for good or ill. The fact that other countries have grown more doesn't diminish that.
York. I thought it was one of those genteel slightly Hyacinth Bouquet meets Alan Bennett Yorkshire towns like Wetherby or Harrogate. But no, from this weekend’s evidence it’s very much a city of “the people”.
Tattier than its sibling Canterbury, most surprisingly. And humming with 21st century chain nightlife. Within a 5 minute walk of my Airbnb there’s a Slug & Lettuce, O’Neills, Yates’s wine lodge, and a Pitcher & Piano. Brands I thought had died a decade or more ago. Not to mention “Lil’s on the waterfront”, “plonkers”, “the stone roses bar”, “Valhalla” and a whole panoply of other venues, filled with the dolled up and lagered up party animals of North Yorkshire. Who’d have thought it?
Isn’t this though the English being the English. We have this false image of us from Victorian history and Edwardian times of being polite and mannered but that was the history of the upper to aspirant middle classes. You look at the rest of English history from Georgian back and we are a wild, drunken, unruly mob. It was very useful when establishing defence or taking over other countries to have wonderful drunken hooligans as a majority of the population.
We are individualistic - I feel this is shown in our lack of the family structure when it comes to looking after the old and sending our finest to boarding school.
We are a wild, Northern, irreligious lot. We drink, fight, shag.
We aren’t the Victorian English but we are the English of Beowulf, the fights a drunkenness in Chaucer and Shakespeare. You look at the violence of riots at the Public Schools and the universities.
We are magnificently uncouth in many ways.
We could do with being more Victorian, Britain reached its greatest heights in global history with Victorian values and have declined since
The age of some of the workers in the brothels? You think that was the height of Britain? Let alone the life expectancy of those who didn't go to grammar school.
The age in which we led the industrial revolution, new scientific discoveries and explorations, great novelists and painters and Gothic architecture and the greatest Empire the world has seen for good or ill.
Plus traditional family values where good manners and respectability were prized and uncouth behaviour frowned upon by polite society
"Traditional family values" in the rookeries of Whitechapel...
York. I thought it was one of those genteel slightly Hyacinth Bouquet meets Alan Bennett Yorkshire towns like Wetherby or Harrogate. But no, from this weekend’s evidence it’s very much a city of “the people”.
Tattier than its sibling Canterbury, most surprisingly. And humming with 21st century chain nightlife. Within a 5 minute walk of my Airbnb there’s a Slug & Lettuce, O’Neills, Yates’s wine lodge, and a Pitcher & Piano. Brands I thought had died a decade or more ago. Not to mention “Lil’s on the waterfront”, “plonkers”, “the stone roses bar”, “Valhalla” and a whole panoply of other venues, filled with the dolled up and lagered up party animals of North Yorkshire. Who’d have thought it?
Isn’t this though the English being the English. We have this false image of us from Victorian history and Edwardian times of being polite and mannered but that was the history of the upper to aspirant middle classes. You look at the rest of English history from Georgian back and we are a wild, drunken, unruly mob. It was very useful when establishing defence or taking over other countries to have wonderful drunken hooligans as a majority of the population.
We are individualistic - I feel this is shown in our lack of the family structure when it comes to looking after the old and sending our finest to boarding school.
We are a wild, Northern, irreligious lot. We drink, fight, shag.
We aren’t the Victorian English but we are the English of Beowulf, the fights a drunkenness in Chaucer and Shakespeare. You look at the violence of riots at the Public Schools and the universities.
We are magnificently uncouth in many ways.
We could do with being more Victorian, Britain reached its greatest heights in global history with Victorian values and have declined since
The age of some of the workers in the brothels? You think that was the height of Britain? Let alone the life expectancy of those who didn't go to grammar school.
The age in which we led the industrial revolution, new scientific discoveries and explorations, great novelists and painters and Gothic architecture and the greatest Empire the world has seen for good or ill.
Plus traditional family values where good manners and respectability were prized and uncouth behaviour frowned upon by polite society
"Traditional family values" in the rookeries of Whitechapel...
The vast majority of the population lived nowhere near Whitechapel, divorce was rare and the family prized
York. I thought it was one of those genteel slightly Hyacinth Bouquet meets Alan Bennett Yorkshire towns like Wetherby or Harrogate. But no, from this weekend’s evidence it’s very much a city of “the people”.
Tattier than its sibling Canterbury, most surprisingly. And humming with 21st century chain nightlife. Within a 5 minute walk of my Airbnb there’s a Slug & Lettuce, O’Neills, Yates’s wine lodge, and a Pitcher & Piano. Brands I thought had died a decade or more ago. Not to mention “Lil’s on the waterfront”, “plonkers”, “the stone roses bar”, “Valhalla” and a whole panoply of other venues, filled with the dolled up and lagered up party animals of North Yorkshire. Who’d have thought it?
Isn’t this though the English being the English. We have this false image of us from Victorian history and Edwardian times of being polite and mannered but that was the history of the upper to aspirant middle classes. You look at the rest of English history from Georgian back and we are a wild, drunken, unruly mob. It was very useful when establishing defence or taking over other countries to have wonderful drunken hooligans as a majority of the population.
We are individualistic - I feel this is shown in our lack of the family structure when it comes to looking after the old and sending our finest to boarding school.
We are a wild, Northern, irreligious lot. We drink, fight, shag.
We aren’t the Victorian English but we are the English of Beowulf, the fights a drunkenness in Chaucer and Shakespeare. You look at the violence of riots at the Public Schools and the universities.
We are magnificently uncouth in many ways.
We could do with being more Victorian, Britain reached its greatest heights in global history with Victorian values and have declined since
The age of some of the workers in the brothels? You think that was the height of Britain? Let alone the life expectancy of those who didn't go to grammar school.
The age in which we led the industrial revolution, new scientific discoveries and explorations, great novelists and painters and Gothic architecture and the greatest Empire the world has seen for good or ill.
Plus traditional family values where good manners and respectability were prized and uncouth behaviour frowned upon by polite society
When life expectancy and wages and life experiences were crap compared to today.
This is the greatest Britain has ever been, for good or ill. The fact that other countries have grown more doesn't diminish that.
Wages and life expectancy grew dramatically because of the Industrial Revolution started in Victorian Britain
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Interesting. So are you claiming the Scots have an inferiority complex?
Those flying a Saltire in their gardens? I think that's at least part of it, yes.
The thing about the English (and I guess the UK as whole) is that they have not had a revolution and they haven't overthrown an oppressor, so they don't need to define themselves against one in the same way as the Americans, the Scottish, the Welsh, the French etc do.
The one thing they can cling to is the Norman Invasion, hence the febrile fascination with Anglo-Saxons. Godwinson's flag was a white soldier on a red field, if anyone is looking for ideas...
Speaking of which the new BBC drama on the Norman Conquest has just finished its first episode on BBC1 focusing on the lead up to Edward the Confessor's coronation
Which is getting dreadful reviews. Shame, it's such a good story as told by the Rest is History.
I'll give it a go tomorrow.
I don’t think the BBC have it in them to make good drama anymore. You hear BBC and you know it’s going to be crap. I’m open to counter-arguments.
It’s sad, I pretty much grew up on “prestige British drama”.
Something this intriguing needed the Wolf Hall (series 1) treatment. Just do the politics in an impossibly serious way, otherwise it's too like The Last Kingdom.
(I haven't actually seen it yet, just guessing it's going to be OTT on the bants and the battles).
I thought it was fine set the scene with Emma of Normandy, the Godwinsons, Edward the Confessor and William of Normandy.
Followed the Excellent Narrow Road to the Deep North from the last few weeks too
My view of King and Conqueror so far is that it is utterly dire.
I was so looking forward to having a decent serious history/warfare late summer drama series to binge watch.
Jeez.
Could a streaming service make something worse than this BBC bilge?
Surely the key actors would rather die than tell wikipedia they were in this?
It is ridiculously unclear what is going on, right from the get go; who is who, where is where, why is why and yet there are far too many mini-scenes where they try and establish that this is:
a) a long time ago - so someone plays what looks like a lute (???eh?? saxons? ), people prat around cooking with squirrels over a twig fire, frumpy women are seen clearing out earth toilets, tents are brushed down whilst uncountable numbers of sons of the actual king wander around arguing.
b) key characters from two different dynasties and countries/states are all dressed EXACTLY the same (which is probably historically true but does not fucking work as drama - am I in Normandy or Wessex from scene to scene ?? (no idea - every arrowsmith, cartwheel maker and every peasant cooking stew looks the same). The scenes literally are impossible to split - maybe that's the modern lefty drama way of pointing out that all sides in a war are the same??
c) The usual tedious shit whereby directors of historical dramas try and show at length they understand the common working man or women by showing the lord of the manor interacting with some pleb who is clearing shit from the side of a horse, or cooking shite stew food on an open fire, attempting to make a sword - but the lord of the manor knows better how to temper it whilst looking longingly at the blacksmiths 12 year daughter etc etc. Obviosuly there's a scene where the latter gets a good seeing to in... wait for it...some kind of hayloft.
Game of Thrones was ironic most of the time.
Do I sound pissed off?
I have been binging on Netflix and Apple - slow horses, narcos, the studio, the leopard for months now and have felt bad that as a huge supporter of the BBC in theory I have neglected the cause and so on.
Erm..
Five minutes of the magisterial The Leopard tv series from Netflix blows away this weekend's BBC shit like seeds from a fucking Italian poppy.
There is just no comparison.
Obvs there is a chance that by end of series two of kings I will be saying this is the greatest tv series of all time. But ...
York. I thought it was one of those genteel slightly Hyacinth Bouquet meets Alan Bennett Yorkshire towns like Wetherby or Harrogate. But no, from this weekend’s evidence it’s very much a city of “the people”.
Tattier than its sibling Canterbury, most surprisingly. And humming with 21st century chain nightlife. Within a 5 minute walk of my Airbnb there’s a Slug & Lettuce, O’Neills, Yates’s wine lodge, and a Pitcher & Piano. Brands I thought had died a decade or more ago. Not to mention “Lil’s on the waterfront”, “plonkers”, “the stone roses bar”, “Valhalla” and a whole panoply of other venues, filled with the dolled up and lagered up party animals of North Yorkshire. Who’d have thought it?
Isn’t this though the English being the English. We have this false image of us from Victorian history and Edwardian times of being polite and mannered but that was the history of the upper to aspirant middle classes. You look at the rest of English history from Georgian back and we are a wild, drunken, unruly mob. It was very useful when establishing defence or taking over other countries to have wonderful drunken hooligans as a majority of the population.
We are individualistic - I feel this is shown in our lack of the family structure when it comes to looking after the old and sending our finest to boarding school.
We are a wild, Northern, irreligious lot. We drink, fight, shag.
We aren’t the Victorian English but we are the English of Beowulf, the fights a drunkenness in Chaucer and Shakespeare. You look at the violence of riots at the Public Schools and the universities.
We are magnificently uncouth in many ways.
We could do with being more Victorian, Britain reached its greatest heights in global history with Victorian values and have declined since
The age of some of the workers in the brothels? You think that was the height of Britain? Let alone the life expectancy of those who didn't go to grammar school.
The age in which we led the industrial revolution, new scientific discoveries and explorations, great novelists and painters and Gothic architecture and the greatest Empire the world has seen for good or ill.
Plus traditional family values where good manners and respectability were prized and uncouth behaviour frowned upon by polite society
When life expectancy and wages and life experiences were crap compared to today.
This is the greatest Britain has ever been, for good or ill. The fact that other countries have grown more doesn't diminish that.
Wages and life expectancy grew dramatically because of the Industrial Revolution started in Victorian Britain
Ummm: didn't life expectancy initially take a dive with the industrial revolution?
And it was only later, when cities began to invest in sewage and clean water and the like, that it actually resulted in longer life expectancy.
York. I thought it was one of those genteel slightly Hyacinth Bouquet meets Alan Bennett Yorkshire towns like Wetherby or Harrogate. But no, from this weekend’s evidence it’s very much a city of “the people”.
Tattier than its sibling Canterbury, most surprisingly. And humming with 21st century chain nightlife. Within a 5 minute walk of my Airbnb there’s a Slug & Lettuce, O’Neills, Yates’s wine lodge, and a Pitcher & Piano. Brands I thought had died a decade or more ago. Not to mention “Lil’s on the waterfront”, “plonkers”, “the stone roses bar”, “Valhalla” and a whole panoply of other venues, filled with the dolled up and lagered up party animals of North Yorkshire. Who’d have thought it?
Isn’t this though the English being the English. We have this false image of us from Victorian history and Edwardian times of being polite and mannered but that was the history of the upper to aspirant middle classes. You look at the rest of English history from Georgian back and we are a wild, drunken, unruly mob. It was very useful when establishing defence or taking over other countries to have wonderful drunken hooligans as a majority of the population.
We are individualistic - I feel this is shown in our lack of the family structure when it comes to looking after the old and sending our finest to boarding school.
We are a wild, Northern, irreligious lot. We drink, fight, shag.
We aren’t the Victorian English but we are the English of Beowulf, the fights a drunkenness in Chaucer and Shakespeare. You look at the violence of riots at the Public Schools and the universities.
We are magnificently uncouth in many ways.
We could do with being more Victorian, Britain reached its greatest heights in global history with Victorian values and have declined since
The age of some of the workers in the brothels? You think that was the height of Britain? Let alone the life expectancy of those who didn't go to grammar school.
The age in which we led the industrial revolution, new scientific discoveries and explorations, great novelists and painters and Gothic architecture and the greatest Empire the world has seen for good or ill.
Plus traditional family values where good manners and respectability were prized and uncouth behaviour frowned upon by polite society
When life expectancy and wages and life experiences were crap compared to today.
This is the greatest Britain has ever been, for good or ill. The fact that other countries have grown more doesn't diminish that.
Wages and life expectancy grew dramatically because of the Industrial Revolution started in Victorian Britain
The UK today and the world as a whole is a better place due to the Industrial Revolution, yes. However, that does not negate the fact that Britain is at a greater height today than it was then, even if others have grown more too.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Interesting. So are you claiming the Scots have an inferiority complex?
Those flying a Saltire in their gardens? I think that's at least part of it, yes.
The thing about the English (and I guess the UK as whole) is that they have not had a revolution and they haven't overthrown an oppressor, so they don't need to define themselves against one in the same way as the Americans, the Scottish, the Welsh, the French etc do.
The one thing they can cling to is the Norman Invasion, hence the febrile fascination with Anglo-Saxons. Godwinson's flag was a white soldier on a red field, if anyone is looking for ideas...
Speaking of which the new BBC drama on the Norman Conquest has just finished its first episode on BBC1 focusing on the lead up to Edward the Confessor's coronation
Which is getting dreadful reviews. Shame, it's such a good story as told by the Rest is History.
I'll give it a go tomorrow.
I don’t think the BBC have it in them to make good drama anymore. You hear BBC and you know it’s going to be crap. I’m open to counter-arguments.
It’s sad, I pretty much grew up on “prestige British drama”.
Something this intriguing needed the Wolf Hall (series 1) treatment. Just do the politics in an impossibly serious way, otherwise it's too like The Last Kingdom.
(I haven't actually seen it yet, just guessing it's going to be OTT on the bants and the battles).
I thought it was fine set the scene with Emma of Normandy, the Godwinsons, Edward the Confessor and William of Normandy.
Followed the Excellent Narrow Road to the Deep North from the last few weeks too
My view of King and Conqueror so far is that it is utterly dire.
I was so looking forward to having a decent serious history/warfare late summer drama series to binge watch.
Jeez.
Could a streaming service make something worse than this BBC bilge?
Surely the key actors would rather die than tell wikipedia they were in this?
It is ridiculously unclear what is going on, right from the get go; who is who, where is where, why is why and yet there are far too many mini-scenes where they try and establish that this is:
a) a long time ago - so someone plays what looks like a lute (???eh?? saxons? ), people prat around cooking with squirrels over a twig fire, frumpy women are seen clearing out earth toilets, tents are brushed down whilst uncountable numbers of sons of the actual king wander around arguing.
b) key characters from two different dynasties and countries/states are all dressed EXACTLY the same (which is probably historically true but does not fucking work as drama - am I in Normandy or Wessex from scene to scene ?? (no idea - every arrowsmith, cartwheel maker and every peasant cooking stew looks the same). The scenes literally are impossible to split - maybe that's the modern lefty drama way of pointing out that all sides in a war are the same??
c) The usual tedious shit whereby directors of historical dramas try and show at length they understand the common working man or women by showing the lord of the manor interacting with some pleb who is clearing shit from the side of a horse, or cooking shite stew food on an open fire, attempting to make a sword - but the lord of the manor knows better how to temper it whilst looking longingly at the blacksmiths 12 year daughter etc etc. Obviosuly there's a scene where the latter gets a good seeing to in... wait for it...some kind of hayloft.
Game of Thrones was ironic most of the time.
Do I sound pissed off?
I have been binging on Netflix and Apple - slow horses, narcos, the studio, the leopard for months now and have felt bad that as a huge supporter of the BBC in theory I have neglected the cause and so on.
Erm..
Five minutes of the magisterial The Leopard tv series from Netflix blows away this weekend's BBC shit like seeds from a fucking Italian poppy.
There is just no comparison.
Obvs there is a chance that by end of series two of kings I will be saying this is the greatest tv series of all time. But ...
I haven't watched the BBC in years and cancelled the licence fee.
Not because of politics, but because its utterly shit.
I don't miss it.
I do miss Sky Sports, its disgraceful the cakeism that you need to pay the licence fee both to watch non-BBC Sky if live, and the iPlayer when not live.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Interesting. So are you claiming the Scots have an inferiority complex?
Those flying a Saltire in their gardens? I think that's at least part of it, yes.
The thing about the English (and I guess the UK as whole) is that they have not had a revolution and they haven't overthrown an oppressor, so they don't need to define themselves against one in the same way as the Americans, the Scottish, the Welsh, the French etc do.
The one thing they can cling to is the Norman Invasion, hence the febrile fascination with Anglo-Saxons. Godwinson's flag was a white soldier on a red field, if anyone is looking for ideas...
Speaking of which the new BBC drama on the Norman Conquest has just finished its first episode on BBC1 focusing on the lead up to Edward the Confessor's coronation
Which is getting dreadful reviews. Shame, it's such a good story as told by the Rest is History.
I'll give it a go tomorrow.
I don’t think the BBC have it in them to make good drama anymore. You hear BBC and you know it’s going to be crap. I’m open to counter-arguments.
It’s sad, I pretty much grew up on “prestige British drama”.
It does occasionally happen
Peaky Blinders is good, at least in the first couple of seasons. SAS Rogue Heroes is really entertaining in an unWoke way
Noticeably both written by the same guy: Steven Knight
But yes in general a notable decline. On the other hand, British drama co-pros and British TV talent in general is stil making magnificent TV. Much of Succession is British, from the actors to the writers. Indeed I just saw Brian Cox, coincidentally, eating dinner in Primrose Hill, about two hours ago. Looking pretty fit and spry for 79
Fun fact: Steven Knight also devised Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Interesting. So are you claiming the Scots have an inferiority complex?
Those flying a Saltire in their gardens? I think that's at least part of it, yes.
The thing about the English (and I guess the UK as whole) is that they have not had a revolution and they haven't overthrown an oppressor, so they don't need to define themselves against one in the same way as the Americans, the Scottish, the Welsh, the French etc do.
The one thing they can cling to is the Norman Invasion, hence the febrile fascination with Anglo-Saxons. Godwinson's flag was a white soldier on a red field, if anyone is looking for ideas...
Speaking of which the new BBC drama on the Norman Conquest has just finished its first episode on BBC1 focusing on the lead up to Edward the Confessor's coronation
Which is getting dreadful reviews. Shame, it's such a good story as told by the Rest is History.
I'll give it a go tomorrow.
I don’t think the BBC have it in them to make good drama anymore. You hear BBC and you know it’s going to be crap. I’m open to counter-arguments.
It’s sad, I pretty much grew up on “prestige British drama”.
It does occasionally happen
Peaky Blinders is good, at least in the first couple of seasons. SAS Rogue Heroes is really entertaining in an unWoke way
Noticeably both written by the same guy: Steven Knight
But yes in general a notable decline. On the other hand, British drama co-pros and British TV talent in general is stil making magnificent TV. Much of Succession is British, from the actors to the writers. Indeed I just saw Brian Cox, coincidentally, eating dinner in Primrose Hill, about two hours ago. Looking pretty fit and spry for 79
Peaky Blinders was released over a decade ago.
There's plenty of British talent, I completely agree with that, but the best films and shows now with British talent are getting developed not via the outdated BBC.
What you wave yourself, what you run up a flagpole on your property, what you put in your window, that's up to you. There may be social consequences if it's the flags of our enemies, but that's as far as it goes. Otherwise, the more the merrier. (One of the things that the English always seem to have struggled with is overlapping identities, some of them shared and others not. See London vs. Essex here in Romford, or the British/European thing that caused and causes so much hassle in our relationship with the EU... it's largely a non-question elsewhere.)
And if there's a sense that life would be nicer with more flags, splendid. Let's work out how to pay to do it properly.
But if you co-opt lampposts as unoffical flagpoles without asking, that's vandalism. If you go round spray-painting scruffy red crosses everywhere, that's definitely vandalism. And that's not terribly British/English... is it?
Painting something is vandalism, but tying a flag to something is not, because it's not a permanent fixture. I believe that distinction is in law.
Yes, it was Mrs T who legislated against flags on lampposts.
Highways Act 1980. s132 A person who, without either the consent of the highway authority for the highway in question or an authorisation given by or under an enactment or a reasonable excuse, paints or otherwise inscribes or affixes any picture, letter, sign or other mark upon the surface of a highway or upon any tree, structure or works on or in a highway is guilty of an offence and liable to a fine not exceeding £100 or, in the case of a second or subsequent conviction under this subsection, to a fine not exceeding £200...
Doing so with cheap polyester numbers from China should be an aggravated offence, IMO.
Of course it was a Conservative government. That was odds-on ever since Kemi weighed in on the other side.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Interesting. So are you claiming the Scots have an inferiority complex?
Those flying a Saltire in their gardens? I think that's at least part of it, yes.
The thing about the English (and I guess the UK as whole) is that they have not had a revolution and they haven't overthrown an oppressor, so they don't need to define themselves against one in the same way as the Americans, the Scottish, the Welsh, the French etc do.
The one thing they can cling to is the Norman Invasion, hence the febrile fascination with Anglo-Saxons. Godwinson's flag was a white soldier on a red field, if anyone is looking for ideas...
Speaking of which the new BBC drama on the Norman Conquest has just finished its first episode on BBC1 focusing on the lead up to Edward the Confessor's coronation
Which is getting dreadful reviews. Shame, it's such a good story as told by the Rest is History.
I'll give it a go tomorrow.
I don’t think the BBC have it in them to make good drama anymore. You hear BBC and you know it’s going to be crap. I’m open to counter-arguments.
It’s sad, I pretty much grew up on “prestige British drama”.
It does occasionally happen
Peaky Blinders is good, at least in the first couple of seasons. SAS Rogue Heroes is really entertaining in an unWoke way
Noticeably both written by the same guy: Steven Knight
But yes in general a notable decline. On the other hand, British drama co-pros and British TV talent in general is stil making magnificent TV. Much of Succession is British, from the actors to the writers. Indeed I just saw Brian Cox, coincidentally, eating dinner in Primrose Hill, about two hours ago. Looking pretty fit and spry for 79
Peaky Blinders was released over a decade ago.
There's plenty of British talent, I completely agree with that, but the best films and shows now with British talent are getting developed not via the outdated BBC.
If what you mean is that American streamers have been buying up everyone who is not nailed down, then yes, but I'm not sure that makes the BBC outdated.
The Government would save about £40bn (year one) if the Bank of England stopped paying commercial banks interest on their QE holdings. It's absolutely loony for a central bank to give banks a load of money and than pay them interest on it.
The 'argument' I've heard for not stopping this muppetry is that it 'smacks of default' and would spook investors.
But as long as the spend is not reassigned, I think it would actually be seen as a responsible and serious move. The Government would effectively not be borrowing that £40bn.
The commercial banks give the BoE assets in return. It’s not “free money” for the banks but is designed to ensure liquidity in the system
Well, if it's not free money, and is given in exchange for assets, there should be no objection to it stopping, and those assets being retained, should there?
The interest is paid because it is owed.
The bank can stop the programme if it doesn’t need to support liquidity in the banking system
So that's a change of story from it being 'in exchange for assets' then isn't it?
It is not owed, because no other central bank pays interests on its own QE the way ours does.
I think you are confused. There are multiple different programmes:
1. One in which the commercial banks buy bonds from the Bank of England. In return they give the Bank of England assets. This is designed to promote liquidity (the assets transferred by the commercial banks are real assets but are illiquid). But the assets exist and interest should be paid on the bonds that are used to pay for them
2. One in which the Treasury creates new bonds and sells them to the market for cash (this is the normal debt management process). Once again they are real debt and interest should be paid on them.
What you are getting muddled up with is wheee the Bank of England buys bonds direct from the Treasury. This is basically printing money. It’s meaningless whether interest is paid these bonds or not - any profits the bank makes are just returned to the Treasury.
Right, so you mistook my meaning, though it was really expressed quite clearly, gave me an irrelevant answer as a result, and it's apparently me who was confused? Ok hun.
I was similarly 'confused' this morning when Bondygoogoo tried to tell me that almost all Pakistani asylum seekers got sent home, and it turned out 57% of them were granted asylum, but silly confused me didn't realise he was averaging out the whole of South Asia.
You quite clearly complained about the Bank of England paying “commercial banks” interest on their holdings.
I responded on the assets held by “commercial banks”
Forgive me for not realising that when you said “commercial banks” you really meant “central bank of the United Kingdom”
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Interesting. So are you claiming the Scots have an inferiority complex?
Those flying a Saltire in their gardens? I think that's at least part of it, yes.
The thing about the English (and I guess the UK as whole) is that they have not had a revolution and they haven't overthrown an oppressor, so they don't need to define themselves against one in the same way as the Americans, the Scottish, the Welsh, the French etc do.
The one thing they can cling to is the Norman Invasion, hence the febrile fascination with Anglo-Saxons. Godwinson's flag was a white soldier on a red field, if anyone is looking for ideas...
Speaking of which the new BBC drama on the Norman Conquest has just finished its first episode on BBC1 focusing on the lead up to Edward the Confessor's coronation
Which is getting dreadful reviews. Shame, it's such a good story as told by the Rest is History.
I'll give it a go tomorrow.
I don’t think the BBC have it in them to make good drama anymore. You hear BBC and you know it’s going to be crap. I’m open to counter-arguments.
It’s sad, I pretty much grew up on “prestige British drama”.
The decline in radio drama is very pronounced. Which you'd have thought would hold up given how cheap it is compared to the telly.
There used to be a torrent site that hosted old UK radio drama's which the BBC and other UK radio broadcasters didn't make available. Lots of old recordings people had made to their own tapes in the 60s and 70s. Quite a treasure trove.
Then the beeb (as I understand it) threatened them with the legals. And the owner shut it all down. Then the beeb said even though they had the recordings, they weren't "broadcast quality" so wouldn't make them available.
So - all lost to us, the people who paid for it in the first place. And some lost altogether as the broadcasters are gone.
Still, top work by the legal departments. Bonuses all round.
Morning PB, from an Athens where it's already becoming light.
BBC TV still hasnt recovered from the 1990's Mckinsey's episode, and marketisation of its structure, but radio has retained a little more. However, even Radio 3, at some times of day, is beginning resemble Classic FM more than it used to. It's simply always much easier to lose decades of subtlety and accumulated expertise than to regain it.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Interesting. So are you claiming the Scots have an inferiority complex?
Those flying a Saltire in their gardens? I think that's at least part of it, yes.
The thing about the English (and I guess the UK as whole) is that they have not had a revolution and they haven't overthrown an oppressor, so they don't need to define themselves against one in the same way as the Americans, the Scottish, the Welsh, the French etc do.
The one thing they can cling to is the Norman Invasion, hence the febrile fascination with Anglo-Saxons. Godwinson's flag was a white soldier on a red field, if anyone is looking for ideas...
Speaking of which the new BBC drama on the Norman Conquest has just finished its first episode on BBC1 focusing on the lead up to Edward the Confessor's coronation
Which is getting dreadful reviews. Shame, it's such a good story as told by the Rest is History.
I'll give it a go tomorrow.
I don’t think the BBC have it in them to make good drama anymore. You hear BBC and you know it’s going to be crap. I’m open to counter-arguments.
It’s sad, I pretty much grew up on “prestige British drama”.
The decline in radio drama is very pronounced. Which you'd have thought would hold up given how cheap it is compared to the telly.
There used to be a torrent site that hosted old UK radio drama's which the BBC and other UK radio broadcasters didn't make available. Lots of old recordings people had made to their own tapes in the 60s and 70s. Quite a treasure trove.
Then the beeb (as I understand it) threatened them with the legals. And the owner shut it all down. Then the beeb said even though they had the recordings, they weren't "broadcast quality" so wouldn't make them available.
So - all lost to us, the people who paid for it in the first place. And some lost altogether as the broadcasters are gone.
Still, top work by the legal departments. Bonuses all round.
Morning PB, from an Athens where it's already becoming light.
BBC TV still hasnt recovered from the 1990's Mckinsey's episode, and marketisation of its structure, but radio has retained a little more. However, even Radio 3, at some times of day, is beginning resemble Classic FM more than it used to. It's simply always much easier to lose decades of subtlety and accumulated expertise than to regain it.
Supporting England in the Women's Rugby World Cup?
Good guess. However it's a few hooligans given license by the right wing press who are looking for a silly season story.
I struggled to care about Palestine flags on lampposts; now I struggle to care about English ones. Venn diagram jokes are left as an exercise for the reader.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Even Rod Liddle wrote in this week's Fint Knapper Gazette that a country that is flying too many of its own flags all over the place is a sign of a country in trouble and short on confidence.
Which is true
What PB does not seem to understand is that maybe 35-40% of the country (possibly a lot more in the right context) simply do not give a fuck, any more, if you call them "racist", "gammons", "Nazis", whatever. They've heard it for fifty years, and they've been scorned for fifty years, and they've been ignored, in terms of their views on mass immigration for the same fifty years, and as a result their towns, cities and country have been transformed in a way they not only did not vote for, but expressly voted AGAINST
The lies are now coming back to haunt the liars, and a bill is about to be presented. I prefer the German term. Die Rechnung
Not entirely surprised you prefer the German.
Droll
It is true tho, the German language is generally unpretty, and sometimes quite harsh, but on occasions that is an advantage
DIE RECHNUNG! is fabulous in its emphatic anger
I have long cherished an anecdote I heard, that the Italian police have to train their dogs in German, because dogs simply don't obey the fey mellifluous babble of orders in Italian, it sounds like someone reciting a nice menu. But if the dogs are told "SITZEN!!!" then they bloody well do it, in terror
Almost certainly untrue, but I will continue to believe it, coz
I love the comparisons of the Euro languages for Butterfly.
French - Papillon Italian - farfalla Spanish - Mariposa Portuguese - borboleta
And then the Germans come along and order what sounds like an instruction for a mass killing with a shout of “Schmeterling”.
How you feel about the sound of a language is mostly about how you feel about the speakers of the language, rather than a preference for particular sounds.
Even in your example "Schmetterling" is quite a similar collection of sounds to "butterfly". "Schmetten" means cream (like smetana) so the meaning is also connected. Buttervogel is an old German word for butterfly.
It's simply not true, but you go on believing it
Danish IS ugly, German IS harsh, Russian IS darkly poetic, etc
Darkly poetic my arse.
Clearly different languages have different sounds, but if you hear an order for mass killing in the sounds ˈʃmɛtɐlɪŋ that is 100% your associations with Germans and Germany and 0% the actual sounds.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Interesting. So are you claiming the Scots have an inferiority complex?
Those flying a Saltire in their gardens? I think that's at least part of it, yes.
The thing about the English (and I guess the UK as whole) is that they have not had a revolution and they haven't overthrown an oppressor, so they don't need to define themselves against one in the same way as the Americans, the Scottish, the Welsh, the French etc do.
The one thing they can cling to is the Norman Invasion, hence the febrile fascination with Anglo-Saxons. Godwinson's flag was a white soldier on a red field, if anyone is looking for ideas...
Speaking of which the new BBC drama on the Norman Conquest has just finished its first episode on BBC1 focusing on the lead up to Edward the Confessor's coronation
Which is getting dreadful reviews. Shame, it's such a good story as told by the Rest is History.
I'll give it a go tomorrow.
I don’t think the BBC have it in them to make good drama anymore. You hear BBC and you know it’s going to be crap. I’m open to counter-arguments.
It’s sad, I pretty much grew up on “prestige British drama”.
The decline in radio drama is very pronounced. Which you'd have thought would hold up given how cheap it is compared to the telly.
There used to be a torrent site that hosted old UK radio drama's which the BBC and other UK radio broadcasters didn't make available. Lots of old recordings people had made to their own tapes in the 60s and 70s. Quite a treasure trove.
Then the beeb (as I understand it) threatened them with the legals. And the owner shut it all down. Then the beeb said even though they had the recordings, they weren't "broadcast quality" so wouldn't make them available.
So - all lost to us, the people who paid for it in the first place. And some lost altogether as the broadcasters are gone.
Still, top work by the legal departments. Bonuses all round.
Morning PB, from an Athens where it's already becoming light.
BBC TV still hasnt recovered from the 1990's Mckinsey's episode, and marketisation of its structure, but radio has retained a little more. However, even Radio 3, at some times of day, is beginning resemble Classic FM more than it used to. It's simply always much easier to lose decades of subtlety and accumulated expertise than to regain it.
I hope not, give that Classic FM only ever plays the same eight tunes over and over these days.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Interesting. So are you claiming the Scots have an inferiority complex?
Those flying a Saltire in their gardens? I think that's at least part of it, yes.
The thing about the English (and I guess the UK as whole) is that they have not had a revolution and they haven't overthrown an oppressor, so they don't need to define themselves against one in the same way as the Americans, the Scottish, the Welsh, the French etc do.
The one thing they can cling to is the Norman Invasion, hence the febrile fascination with Anglo-Saxons. Godwinson's flag was a white soldier on a red field, if anyone is looking for ideas...
Speaking of which the new BBC drama on the Norman Conquest has just finished its first episode on BBC1 focusing on the lead up to Edward the Confessor's coronation
Which is getting dreadful reviews. Shame, it's such a good story as told by the Rest is History.
I'll give it a go tomorrow.
I don’t think the BBC have it in them to make good drama anymore. You hear BBC and you know it’s going to be crap. I’m open to counter-arguments.
It’s sad, I pretty much grew up on “prestige British drama”.
The decline in radio drama is very pronounced. Which you'd have thought would hold up given how cheap it is compared to the telly.
There used to be a torrent site that hosted old UK radio drama's which the BBC and other UK radio broadcasters didn't make available. Lots of old recordings people had made to their own tapes in the 60s and 70s. Quite a treasure trove.
Then the beeb (as I understand it) threatened them with the legals. And the owner shut it all down. Then the beeb said even though they had the recordings, they weren't "broadcast quality" so wouldn't make them available.
So - all lost to us, the people who paid for it in the first place. And some lost altogether as the broadcasters are gone.
Still, top work by the legal departments. Bonuses all round.
Morning PB, from an Athens where it's already becoming light.
BBC TV still hasnt recovered from the 1990's Mckinsey's episode, and marketisation of its structure, but radio has retained a little more. However, even Radio 3, at some times of day, is beginning resemble Classic FM more than it used to. It's simply always much easier to lose decades of subtlety and accumulated expertise than to regain it.
Meanwhile, in another attack on free speech unlikely to bring a rebuke from the US vice president:
A CDU politician has threatened to start criminal investigations and legal action against the lead singer of Die Toten Hosen for saying that "local CDU groups are throwing themselves at the AfD" at an anti-Nazi festival in MeckPomm
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Even Rod Liddle wrote in this week's Fint Knapper Gazette that a country that is flying too many of its own flags all over the place is a sign of a country in trouble and short on confidence.
Which is true
What PB does not seem to understand is that maybe 35-40% of the country (possibly a lot more in the right context) simply do not give a fuck, any more, if you call them "racist", "gammons", "Nazis", whatever. They've heard it for fifty years, and they've been scorned for fifty years, and they've been ignored, in terms of their views on mass immigration for the same fifty years, and as a result their towns, cities and country have been transformed in a way they not only did not vote for, but expressly voted AGAINST
The lies are now coming back to haunt the liars, and a bill is about to be presented. I prefer the German term. Die Rechnung
Not entirely surprised you prefer the German.
Droll
It is true tho, the German language is generally unpretty, and sometimes quite harsh, but on occasions that is an advantage
DIE RECHNUNG! is fabulous in its emphatic anger
I have long cherished an anecdote I heard, that the Italian police have to train their dogs in German, because dogs simply don't obey the fey mellifluous babble of orders in Italian, it sounds like someone reciting a nice menu. But if the dogs are told "SITZEN!!!" then they bloody well do it, in terror
Almost certainly untrue, but I will continue to believe it, coz
I love the comparisons of the Euro languages for Butterfly.
French - Papillon Italian - farfalla Spanish - Mariposa Portuguese - borboleta
And then the Germans come along and order what sounds like an instruction for a mass killing with a shout of “Schmeterling”.
How you feel about the sound of a language is mostly about how you feel about the speakers of the language, rather than a preference for particular sounds.
Even in your example "Schmetterling" is quite a similar collection of sounds to "butterfly". "Schmetten" means cream (like smetana) so the meaning is also connected. Buttervogel is an old German word for butterfly.
It's simply not true, but you go on believing it
Danish IS ugly, German IS harsh, Russian IS darkly poetic, etc
Darkly poetic my arse.
Clearly different languages have different sounds, but if you hear an order for mass killing in the sounds ˈʃmɛtɐlɪŋ that is 100% your associations with Germans and Germany and 0% the actual sounds.
You really are humourless. My comment was a glib way of highlighting its harshness using a trope. It’s not remotely my view of Germans, I have German family who I love and have a good number of German friends and colleagues.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Interesting. So are you claiming the Scots have an inferiority complex?
Those flying a Saltire in their gardens? I think that's at least part of it, yes.
The thing about the English (and I guess the UK as whole) is that they have not had a revolution and they haven't overthrown an oppressor, so they don't need to define themselves against one in the same way as the Americans, the Scottish, the Welsh, the French etc do.
The one thing they can cling to is the Norman Invasion, hence the febrile fascination with Anglo-Saxons. Godwinson's flag was a white soldier on a red field, if anyone is looking for ideas...
Speaking of which the new BBC drama on the Norman Conquest has just finished its first episode on BBC1 focusing on the lead up to Edward the Confessor's coronation
Which is getting dreadful reviews. Shame, it's such a good story as told by the Rest is History.
I'll give it a go tomorrow.
I don’t think the BBC have it in them to make good drama anymore. You hear BBC and you know it’s going to be crap. I’m open to counter-arguments.
It’s sad, I pretty much grew up on “prestige British drama”.
Something this intriguing needed the Wolf Hall (series 1) treatment. Just do the politics in an impossibly serious way, otherwise it's too like The Last Kingdom.
(I haven't actually seen it yet, just guessing it's going to be OTT on the bants and the battles).
I thought it was fine set the scene with Emma of Normandy, the Godwinsons, Edward the Confessor and William of Normandy.
Followed the Excellent Narrow Road to the Deep North from the last few weeks too
My view of King and Conqueror so far is that it is utterly dire.
I was so looking forward to having a decent serious history/warfare late summer drama series to binge watch.
Jeez.
Could a streaming service make something worse than this BBC bilge?
Surely the key actors would rather die than tell wikipedia they were in this?
It is ridiculously unclear what is going on, right from the get go; who is who, where is where, why is why and yet there are far too many mini-scenes where they try and establish that this is:
a) a long time ago - so someone plays what looks like a lute (???eh?? saxons? ), people prat around cooking with squirrels over a twig fire, frumpy women are seen clearing out earth toilets, tents are brushed down whilst uncountable numbers of sons of the actual king wander around arguing.
b) key characters from two different dynasties and countries/states are all dressed EXACTLY the same (which is probably historically true but does not fucking work as drama - am I in Normandy or Wessex from scene to scene ?? (no idea - every arrowsmith, cartwheel maker and every peasant cooking stew looks the same). The scenes literally are impossible to split - maybe that's the modern lefty drama way of pointing out that all sides in a war are the same??
c) The usual tedious shit whereby directors of historical dramas try and show at length they understand the common working man or women by showing the lord of the manor interacting with some pleb who is clearing shit from the side of a horse, or cooking shite stew food on an open fire, attempting to make a sword - but the lord of the manor knows better how to temper it whilst looking longingly at the blacksmiths 12 year daughter etc etc. Obviosuly there's a scene where the latter gets a good seeing to in... wait for it...some kind of hayloft.
Game of Thrones was ironic most of the time.
Do I sound pissed off?
I have been binging on Netflix and Apple - slow horses, narcos, the studio, the leopard for months now and have felt bad that as a huge supporter of the BBC in theory I have neglected the cause and so on.
Erm..
Five minutes of the magisterial The Leopard tv series from Netflix blows away this weekend's BBC shit like seeds from a fucking Italian poppy.
There is just no comparison.
Obvs there is a chance that by end of series two of kings I will be saying this is the greatest tv series of all time. But ...
All they needed to do was use the Bayeaux Tapestry as a guide where it depicts the Saxons with longer hair and giant moustaches and the Norman’s clean shaven with the weird wedge haircut. Not difficult, doesn’t require CGI or aesthetics, just someone curious, maybe the writer for example, reading around the history and cultures of the subject they want to portray.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Even Rod Liddle wrote in this week's Fint Knapper Gazette that a country that is flying too many of its own flags all over the place is a sign of a country in trouble and short on confidence.
Which is true
What PB does not seem to understand is that maybe 35-40% of the country (possibly a lot more in the right context) simply do not give a fuck, any more, if you call them "racist", "gammons", "Nazis", whatever. They've heard it for fifty years, and they've been scorned for fifty years, and they've been ignored, in terms of their views on mass immigration for the same fifty years, and as a result their towns, cities and country have been transformed in a way they not only did not vote for, but expressly voted AGAINST
The lies are now coming back to haunt the liars, and a bill is about to be presented. I prefer the German term. Die Rechnung
Not entirely surprised you prefer the German.
Droll
It is true tho, the German language is generally unpretty, and sometimes quite harsh, but on occasions that is an advantage
DIE RECHNUNG! is fabulous in its emphatic anger
I have long cherished an anecdote I heard, that the Italian police have to train their dogs in German, because dogs simply don't obey the fey mellifluous babble of orders in Italian, it sounds like someone reciting a nice menu. But if the dogs are told "SITZEN!!!" then they bloody well do it, in terror
Almost certainly untrue, but I will continue to believe it, coz
I love the comparisons of the Euro languages for Butterfly.
French - Papillon Italian - farfalla Spanish - Mariposa Portuguese - borboleta
And then the Germans come along and order what sounds like an instruction for a mass killing with a shout of “Schmeterling”.
How you feel about the sound of a language is mostly about how you feel about the speakers of the language, rather than a preference for particular sounds.
Even in your example "Schmetterling" is quite a similar collection of sounds to "butterfly". "Schmetten" means cream (like smetana) so the meaning is also connected. Buttervogel is an old German word for butterfly.
It's simply not true, but you go on believing it
Danish IS ugly, German IS harsh, Russian IS darkly poetic, etc
Darkly poetic my arse.
Clearly different languages have different sounds, but if you hear an order for mass killing in the sounds ˈʃmɛtɐlɪŋ that is 100% your associations with Germans and Germany and 0% the actual sounds.
You really are humourless. My comment was a glib way of highlighting its harshness using a trope. It’s not remotely my view of Germans, I have German family who I love and have a good number of German friends and colleagues.
Leon’s wrong on the Nordic languages, anyhow, as Norwegian - despite being very close to Danish in terms of language, has a sing song lilt that can sound very attractive. And German itself doesn’t have to be all guttural and harsh - for example in the attached (overlooking all the new age/faux medieval poncing about)
York. I thought it was one of those genteel slightly Hyacinth Bouquet meets Alan Bennett Yorkshire towns like Wetherby or Harrogate. But no, from this weekend’s evidence it’s very much a city of “the people”.
Tattier than its sibling Canterbury, most surprisingly. And humming with 21st century chain nightlife. Within a 5 minute walk of my Airbnb there’s a Slug & Lettuce, O’Neills, Yates’s wine lodge, and a Pitcher & Piano. Brands I thought had died a decade or more ago. Not to mention “Lil’s on the waterfront”, “plonkers”, “the stone roses bar”, “Valhalla” and a whole panoply of other venues, filled with the dolled up and lagered up party animals of North Yorkshire. Who’d have thought it?
Isn’t this though the English being the English. We have this false image of us from Victorian history and Edwardian times of being polite and mannered but that was the history of the upper to aspirant middle classes. You look at the rest of English history from Georgian back and we are a wild, drunken, unruly mob. It was very useful when establishing defence or taking over other countries to have wonderful drunken hooligans as a majority of the population.
We are individualistic - I feel this is shown in our lack of the family structure when it comes to looking after the old and sending our finest to boarding school.
We are a wild, Northern, irreligious lot. We drink, fight, shag.
We aren’t the Victorian English but we are the English of Beowulf, the fights a drunkenness in Chaucer and Shakespeare. You look at the violence of riots at the Public Schools and the universities.
We are magnificently uncouth in many ways.
We could do with being more Victorian, Britain reached its greatest heights in global history with Victorian values and have declined since
The age of some of the workers in the brothels? You think that was the height of Britain? Let alone the life expectancy of those who didn't go to grammar school.
The age in which we led the industrial revolution, new scientific discoveries and explorations, great novelists and painters and Gothic architecture and the greatest Empire the world has seen for good or ill.
Plus traditional family values where good manners and respectability were prized and uncouth behaviour frowned upon by polite society
When life expectancy and wages and life experiences were crap compared to today.
This is the greatest Britain has ever been, for good or ill. The fact that other countries have grown more doesn't diminish that.
Wages and life expectancy grew dramatically because of the Industrial Revolution started in Victorian Britain
Wasn 't started in Victorian times.
Wages often crashed for some - think handloom weavers.
And life expectancy ditto. Compare the diets of Scottish agricultural workers with urbanites. It's no coincidence the police recruited from the countryside.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Even Rod Liddle wrote in this week's Fint Knapper Gazette that a country that is flying too many of its own flags all over the place is a sign of a country in trouble and short on confidence.
Which is true
What PB does not seem to understand is that maybe 35-40% of the country (possibly a lot more in the right context) simply do not give a fuck, any more, if you call them "racist", "gammons", "Nazis", whatever. They've heard it for fifty years, and they've been scorned for fifty years, and they've been ignored, in terms of their views on mass immigration for the same fifty years, and as a result their towns, cities and country have been transformed in a way they not only did not vote for, but expressly voted AGAINST
The lies are now coming back to haunt the liars, and a bill is about to be presented. I prefer the German term. Die Rechnung
Not entirely surprised you prefer the German.
Droll
It is true tho, the German language is generally unpretty, and sometimes quite harsh, but on occasions that is an advantage
DIE RECHNUNG! is fabulous in its emphatic anger
I have long cherished an anecdote I heard, that the Italian police have to train their dogs in German, because dogs simply don't obey the fey mellifluous babble of orders in Italian, it sounds like someone reciting a nice menu. But if the dogs are told "SITZEN!!!" then they bloody well do it, in terror
Almost certainly untrue, but I will continue to believe it, coz
I love the comparisons of the Euro languages for Butterfly.
French - Papillon Italian - farfalla Spanish - Mariposa Portuguese - borboleta
And then the Germans come along and order what sounds like an instruction for a mass killing with a shout of “Schmeterling”.
How you feel about the sound of a language is mostly about how you feel about the speakers of the language, rather than a preference for particular sounds.
Even in your example "Schmetterling" is quite a similar collection of sounds to "butterfly". "Schmetten" means cream (like smetana) so the meaning is also connected. Buttervogel is an old German word for butterfly.
It's simply not true, but you go on believing it
Danish IS ugly, German IS harsh, Russian IS darkly poetic, etc
Darkly poetic my arse.
Clearly different languages have different sounds, but if you hear an order for mass killing in the sounds ˈʃmɛtɐlɪŋ that is 100% your associations with Germans and Germany and 0% the actual sounds.
You really are humourless. My comment was a glib way of highlighting its harshness using a trope. It’s not remotely my view of Germans, I have German family who I love and have a good number of German friends and colleagues.
Some of your best friends are German?
I understand the humour, but I actually think it's an interesting question how much of our emotional reaction to a language can be ascribed to the actual sounds of the language. In this example I think it's pretty clear - ˈʃmɛtɐlɪŋ and mass killings? Nothing to do with the sounds. If shouted by an evil SS officer in a war movie? Sure, though a weird thing to shout.
It's impossible to discuss these things with Leon, who is always incapable of differentiating between his subjective opinions and anything approaching objective reality, but you are usually better.
Meanwhile, in another attack on free speech unlikely to bring a rebuke from the US vice president:
A CDU politician has threatened to start criminal investigations and legal action against the lead singer of Die Toten Hosen for saying that "local CDU groups are throwing themselves at the AfD" at an anti-Nazi festival in MeckPomm
The Dead Trousers is a great name for a band (or is my German O Level failing me?)
Meanwhile, in another attack on free speech unlikely to bring a rebuke from the US vice president:
A CDU politician has threatened to start criminal investigations and legal action against the lead singer of Die Toten Hosen for saying that "local CDU groups are throwing themselves at the AfD" at an anti-Nazi festival in MeckPomm
The Dead Trousers is a great name for a band (or is my German O Level failing me?)
Indeed. Comes from the slang "tote Hose" used to describe eg a boring party where nothing is happening
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Even Rod Liddle wrote in this week's Fint Knapper Gazette that a country that is flying too many of its own flags all over the place is a sign of a country in trouble and short on confidence.
Which is true
What PB does not seem to understand is that maybe 35-40% of the country (possibly a lot more in the right context) simply do not give a fuck, any more, if you call them "racist", "gammons", "Nazis", whatever. They've heard it for fifty years, and they've been scorned for fifty years, and they've been ignored, in terms of their views on mass immigration for the same fifty years, and as a result their towns, cities and country have been transformed in a way they not only did not vote for, but expressly voted AGAINST
The lies are now coming back to haunt the liars, and a bill is about to be presented. I prefer the German term. Die Rechnung
Not entirely surprised you prefer the German.
Droll
It is true tho, the German language is generally unpretty, and sometimes quite harsh, but on occasions that is an advantage
DIE RECHNUNG! is fabulous in its emphatic anger
I have long cherished an anecdote I heard, that the Italian police have to train their dogs in German, because dogs simply don't obey the fey mellifluous babble of orders in Italian, it sounds like someone reciting a nice menu. But if the dogs are told "SITZEN!!!" then they bloody well do it, in terror
Almost certainly untrue, but I will continue to believe it, coz
I love the comparisons of the Euro languages for Butterfly.
French - Papillon Italian - farfalla Spanish - Mariposa Portuguese - borboleta
And then the Germans come along and order what sounds like an instruction for a mass killing with a shout of “Schmeterling”.
How you feel about the sound of a language is mostly about how you feel about the speakers of the language, rather than a preference for particular sounds.
Even in your example "Schmetterling" is quite a similar collection of sounds to "butterfly". "Schmetten" means cream (like smetana) so the meaning is also connected. Buttervogel is an old German word for butterfly.
It's simply not true, but you go on believing it
Danish IS ugly, German IS harsh, Russian IS darkly poetic, etc
Darkly poetic my arse.
Clearly different languages have different sounds, but if you hear an order for mass killing in the sounds ˈʃmɛtɐlɪŋ that is 100% your associations with Germans and Germany and 0% the actual sounds.
You really are humourless. My comment was a glib way of highlighting its harshness using a trope. It’s not remotely my view of Germans, I have German family who I love and have a good number of German friends and colleagues.
Some of your best friends are German?
I understand the humour, but I actually think it's an interesting question how much of our emotional reaction to a language can be ascribed to the actual sounds of the language. In this example I think it's pretty clear - ˈʃmɛtɐlɪŋ and mass killings? Nothing to do with the sounds. If shouted by an evil SS officer in a war movie? Sure, though a weird thing to shout.
It's impossible to discuss these things with Leon, who is always incapable of differentiating between his subjective opinions and anything approaching objective reality, but you are usually better.
You do know that people can have foreign friends and family without it being some sort of attempted cover for racism don’t you or are you happier making a nasty subtle accusation whilst hiding behind an anonymous website?
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Even Rod Liddle wrote in this week's Fint Knapper Gazette that a country that is flying too many of its own flags all over the place is a sign of a country in trouble and short on confidence.
Which is true
What PB does not seem to understand is that maybe 35-40% of the country (possibly a lot more in the right context) simply do not give a fuck, any more, if you call them "racist", "gammons", "Nazis", whatever. They've heard it for fifty years, and they've been scorned for fifty years, and they've been ignored, in terms of their views on mass immigration for the same fifty years, and as a result their towns, cities and country have been transformed in a way they not only did not vote for, but expressly voted AGAINST
The lies are now coming back to haunt the liars, and a bill is about to be presented. I prefer the German term. Die Rechnung
Not entirely surprised you prefer the German.
Droll
It is true tho, the German language is generally unpretty, and sometimes quite harsh, but on occasions that is an advantage
DIE RECHNUNG! is fabulous in its emphatic anger
I have long cherished an anecdote I heard, that the Italian police have to train their dogs in German, because dogs simply don't obey the fey mellifluous babble of orders in Italian, it sounds like someone reciting a nice menu. But if the dogs are told "SITZEN!!!" then they bloody well do it, in terror
Almost certainly untrue, but I will continue to believe it, coz
I love the comparisons of the Euro languages for Butterfly.
French - Papillon Italian - farfalla Spanish - Mariposa Portuguese - borboleta
And then the Germans come along and order what sounds like an instruction for a mass killing with a shout of “Schmeterling”.
How you feel about the sound of a language is mostly about how you feel about the speakers of the language, rather than a preference for particular sounds.
Even in your example "Schmetterling" is quite a similar collection of sounds to "butterfly". "Schmetten" means cream (like smetana) so the meaning is also connected. Buttervogel is an old German word for butterfly.
It's simply not true, but you go on believing it
Danish IS ugly, German IS harsh, Russian IS darkly poetic, etc
Darkly poetic my arse.
Clearly different languages have different sounds, but if you hear an order for mass killing in the sounds ˈʃmɛtɐlɪŋ that is 100% your associations with Germans and Germany and 0% the actual sounds.
You really are humourless. My comment was a glib way of highlighting its harshness using a trope. It’s not remotely my view of Germans, I have German family who I love and have a good number of German friends and colleagues.
Some of your best friends are German?
I understand the humour, but I actually think it's an interesting question how much of our emotional reaction to a language can be ascribed to the actual sounds of the language. In this example I think it's pretty clear - ˈʃmɛtɐlɪŋ and mass killings? Nothing to do with the sounds. If shouted by an evil SS officer in a war movie? Sure, though a weird thing to shout.
It's impossible to discuss these things with Leon, who is always incapable of differentiating between his subjective opinions and anything approaching objective reality, but you are usually better.
I kind of agree. I have a theory that even the most anodyne English language pop song suddenly becomes full of portent and noom (to use a Leonism) when sang in German, but I’m aware that’s almost entirely down to my own cultural & historical filters.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Even Rod Liddle wrote in this week's Fint Knapper Gazette that a country that is flying too many of its own flags all over the place is a sign of a country in trouble and short on confidence.
Which is true
What PB does not seem to understand is that maybe 35-40% of the country (possibly a lot more in the right context) simply do not give a fuck, any more, if you call them "racist", "gammons", "Nazis", whatever. They've heard it for fifty years, and they've been scorned for fifty years, and they've been ignored, in terms of their views on mass immigration for the same fifty years, and as a result their towns, cities and country have been transformed in a way they not only did not vote for, but expressly voted AGAINST
The lies are now coming back to haunt the liars, and a bill is about to be presented. I prefer the German term. Die Rechnung
Not entirely surprised you prefer the German.
Droll
It is true tho, the German language is generally unpretty, and sometimes quite harsh, but on occasions that is an advantage
DIE RECHNUNG! is fabulous in its emphatic anger
I have long cherished an anecdote I heard, that the Italian police have to train their dogs in German, because dogs simply don't obey the fey mellifluous babble of orders in Italian, it sounds like someone reciting a nice menu. But if the dogs are told "SITZEN!!!" then they bloody well do it, in terror
Almost certainly untrue, but I will continue to believe it, coz
I love the comparisons of the Euro languages for Butterfly.
French - Papillon Italian - farfalla Spanish - Mariposa Portuguese - borboleta
And then the Germans come along and order what sounds like an instruction for a mass killing with a shout of “Schmeterling”.
How you feel about the sound of a language is mostly about how you feel about the speakers of the language, rather than a preference for particular sounds.
Even in your example "Schmetterling" is quite a similar collection of sounds to "butterfly". "Schmetten" means cream (like smetana) so the meaning is also connected. Buttervogel is an old German word for butterfly.
It's simply not true, but you go on believing it
Danish IS ugly, German IS harsh, Russian IS darkly poetic, etc
Darkly poetic my arse.
Clearly different languages have different sounds, but if you hear an order for mass killing in the sounds ˈʃmɛtɐlɪŋ that is 100% your associations with Germans and Germany and 0% the actual sounds.
You really are humourless. My comment was a glib way of highlighting its harshness using a trope. It’s not remotely my view of Germans, I have German family who I love and have a good number of German friends and colleagues.
Some of your best friends are German?
I understand the humour, but I actually think it's an interesting question how much of our emotional reaction to a language can be ascribed to the actual sounds of the language. In this example I think it's pretty clear - ˈʃmɛtɐlɪŋ and mass killings? Nothing to do with the sounds. If shouted by an evil SS officer in a war movie? Sure, though a weird thing to shout.
It's impossible to discuss these things with Leon, who is always incapable of differentiating between his subjective opinions and anything approaching objective reality, but you are usually better.
I kind of agree. I have a theory that even the most anodyne English language pop song suddenly becomes full of portent and noom (to use a Leonism) when sang in German, but I’m aware that’s almost entirely down to my own cultural & historical filters.
Nena’s 99 Luftballons/Red Balloons is almost two different song in the two languages. The English version feels like a relatively light good pop tune to the English ear but the original German version is powerful and angsty and infinitely better for it.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Even Rod Liddle wrote in this week's Fint Knapper Gazette that a country that is flying too many of its own flags all over the place is a sign of a country in trouble and short on confidence.
Which is true
What PB does not seem to understand is that maybe 35-40% of the country (possibly a lot more in the right context) simply do not give a fuck, any more, if you call them "racist", "gammons", "Nazis", whatever. They've heard it for fifty years, and they've been scorned for fifty years, and they've been ignored, in terms of their views on mass immigration for the same fifty years, and as a result their towns, cities and country have been transformed in a way they not only did not vote for, but expressly voted AGAINST
The lies are now coming back to haunt the liars, and a bill is about to be presented. I prefer the German term. Die Rechnung
Not entirely surprised you prefer the German.
Droll
It is true tho, the German language is generally unpretty, and sometimes quite harsh, but on occasions that is an advantage
DIE RECHNUNG! is fabulous in its emphatic anger
I have long cherished an anecdote I heard, that the Italian police have to train their dogs in German, because dogs simply don't obey the fey mellifluous babble of orders in Italian, it sounds like someone reciting a nice menu. But if the dogs are told "SITZEN!!!" then they bloody well do it, in terror
Almost certainly untrue, but I will continue to believe it, coz
I love the comparisons of the Euro languages for Butterfly.
French - Papillon Italian - farfalla Spanish - Mariposa Portuguese - borboleta
And then the Germans come along and order what sounds like an instruction for a mass killing with a shout of “Schmeterling”.
How you feel about the sound of a language is mostly about how you feel about the speakers of the language, rather than a preference for particular sounds.
Even in your example "Schmetterling" is quite a similar collection of sounds to "butterfly". "Schmetten" means cream (like smetana) so the meaning is also connected. Buttervogel is an old German word for butterfly.
It's simply not true, but you go on believing it
Danish IS ugly, German IS harsh, Russian IS darkly poetic, etc
Darkly poetic my arse.
Clearly different languages have different sounds, but if you hear an order for mass killing in the sounds ˈʃmɛtɐlɪŋ that is 100% your associations with Germans and Germany and 0% the actual sounds.
You really are humourless. My comment was a glib way of highlighting its harshness using a trope. It’s not remotely my view of Germans, I have German family who I love and have a good number of German friends and colleagues.
Some of your best friends are German?
I understand the humour, but I actually think it's an interesting question how much of our emotional reaction to a language can be ascribed to the actual sounds of the language. In this example I think it's pretty clear - ˈʃmɛtɐlɪŋ and mass killings? Nothing to do with the sounds. If shouted by an evil SS officer in a war movie? Sure, though a weird thing to shout.
It's impossible to discuss these things with Leon, who is always incapable of differentiating between his subjective opinions and anything approaching objective reality, but you are usually better.
You do know that people can have foreign friends and family without it being some sort of attempted cover for racism don’t you or are you happier making a nasty subtle accusation whilst hiding behind an anonymous website?
I'm not making any nasty accusation. I'm simply saying what I'm saying: Associating the sound Schmetterling with mass killings has something to do with associations between people speaking German and mass killings, and nothing to do with the sound devoid of any meaning or associations.
I recently bought a robot hoover, which speaks to me. I set the language to English, but changed it to German because I didn't like the American accent. Some of my best friends really are American, but that doesn't stop American accents often annoying me. I don't think this is much to do with the objective sounds, and I can see how some negative associations could have arisen in me.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Even Rod Liddle wrote in this week's Fint Knapper Gazette that a country that is flying too many of its own flags all over the place is a sign of a country in trouble and short on confidence.
Which is true
What PB does not seem to understand is that maybe 35-40% of the country (possibly a lot more in the right context) simply do not give a fuck, any more, if you call them "racist", "gammons", "Nazis", whatever. They've heard it for fifty years, and they've been scorned for fifty years, and they've been ignored, in terms of their views on mass immigration for the same fifty years, and as a result their towns, cities and country have been transformed in a way they not only did not vote for, but expressly voted AGAINST
The lies are now coming back to haunt the liars, and a bill is about to be presented. I prefer the German term. Die Rechnung
Not entirely surprised you prefer the German.
Droll
It is true tho, the German language is generally unpretty, and sometimes quite harsh, but on occasions that is an advantage
DIE RECHNUNG! is fabulous in its emphatic anger
I have long cherished an anecdote I heard, that the Italian police have to train their dogs in German, because dogs simply don't obey the fey mellifluous babble of orders in Italian, it sounds like someone reciting a nice menu. But if the dogs are told "SITZEN!!!" then they bloody well do it, in terror
Almost certainly untrue, but I will continue to believe it, coz
I love the comparisons of the Euro languages for Butterfly.
French - Papillon Italian - farfalla Spanish - Mariposa Portuguese - borboleta
And then the Germans come along and order what sounds like an instruction for a mass killing with a shout of “Schmeterling”.
How you feel about the sound of a language is mostly about how you feel about the speakers of the language, rather than a preference for particular sounds.
Even in your example "Schmetterling" is quite a similar collection of sounds to "butterfly". "Schmetten" means cream (like smetana) so the meaning is also connected. Buttervogel is an old German word for butterfly.
It's simply not true, but you go on believing it
Danish IS ugly, German IS harsh, Russian IS darkly poetic, etc
Darkly poetic my arse.
Clearly different languages have different sounds, but if you hear an order for mass killing in the sounds ˈʃmɛtɐlɪŋ that is 100% your associations with Germans and Germany and 0% the actual sounds.
You really are humourless. My comment was a glib way of highlighting its harshness using a trope. It’s not remotely my view of Germans, I have German family who I love and have a good number of German friends and colleagues.
Some of your best friends are German?
I understand the humour, but I actually think it's an interesting question how much of our emotional reaction to a language can be ascribed to the actual sounds of the language. In this example I think it's pretty clear - ˈʃmɛtɐlɪŋ and mass killings? Nothing to do with the sounds. If shouted by an evil SS officer in a war movie? Sure, though a weird thing to shout.
It's impossible to discuss these things with Leon, who is always incapable of differentiating between his subjective opinions and anything approaching objective reality, but you are usually better.
You do know that people can have foreign friends and family without it being some sort of attempted cover for racism don’t you or are you happier making a nasty subtle accusation whilst hiding behind an anonymous website?
I'm not making any nasty accusation. I'm simply saying what I'm saying: Associating the sound Schmetterling with mass killings has something to do with associations between people speaking German and mass killings, and nothing to do with the sound devoid of any meaning or associations.
I recently bought a robot hoover, which speaks to me. I set the language to English, but changed it to German because I didn't like the American accent. Some of my best friends really are American, but that doesn't stop American accents often annoying me. I don't think this is much to do with the objective sounds, and I can see how some negative associations could have arisen in me.
Ok cool, I understand what you are getting at, as I said my point was glib and used a stereotype for effect. I think also some accents are just annoying to people’s ears for no particular reason - for example I can’t stand the weird euro-American accents on dubbed versions of foreign language dramas on Netflix and have to switch to subtitles. I don’t know what the background is of the voice-over actors but I find it sounds terrible.
York. I thought it was one of those genteel slightly Hyacinth Bouquet meets Alan Bennett Yorkshire towns like Wetherby or Harrogate. But no, from this weekend’s evidence it’s very much a city of “the people”.
Tattier than its sibling Canterbury, most surprisingly. And humming with 21st century chain nightlife. Within a 5 minute walk of my Airbnb there’s a Slug & Lettuce, O’Neills, Yates’s wine lodge, and a Pitcher & Piano. Brands I thought had died a decade or more ago. Not to mention “Lil’s on the waterfront”, “plonkers”, “the stone roses bar”, “Valhalla” and a whole panoply of other venues, filled with the dolled up and lagered up party animals of North Yorkshire. Who’d have thought it?
Isn’t this though the English being the English. We have this false image of us from Victorian history and Edwardian times of being polite and mannered but that was the history of the upper to aspirant middle classes. You look at the rest of English history from Georgian back and we are a wild, drunken, unruly mob. It was very useful when establishing defence or taking over other countries to have wonderful drunken hooligans as a majority of the population.
We are individualistic - I feel this is shown in our lack of the family structure when it comes to looking after the old and sending our finest to boarding school.
We are a wild, Northern, irreligious lot. We drink, fight, shag.
We aren’t the Victorian English but we are the English of Beowulf, the fights a drunkenness in Chaucer and Shakespeare. You look at the violence of riots at the Public Schools and the universities.
We are magnificently uncouth in many ways.
We could do with being more Victorian, Britain reached its greatest heights in global history with Victorian values and have declined since
The age of some of the workers in the brothels? You think that was the height of Britain? Let alone the life expectancy of those who didn't go to grammar school.
The age in which we led the industrial revolution, new scientific discoveries and explorations, great novelists and painters and Gothic architecture and the greatest Empire the world has seen for good or ill.
Plus traditional family values where good manners and respectability were prized and uncouth behaviour frowned upon by polite society
When life expectancy and wages and life experiences were crap compared to today.
This is the greatest Britain has ever been, for good or ill. The fact that other countries have grown more doesn't diminish that.
Wages and life expectancy grew dramatically because of the Industrial Revolution started in Victorian Britain
Wasn 't started in Victorian times.
Wages often crashed for some - think handloom weavers.
And life expectancy ditto. Compare the diets of Scottish agricultural workers with urbanites. It's no coincidence the police recruited from the countryside.
It did wages rose for most because of higher paid jobs in factories etc than working in the fields. Hence so many moved from rural areas to the cities and growing industrial areas for work.
Though the countryside even now can be healthier with less pollution etc
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Even Rod Liddle wrote in this week's Fint Knapper Gazette that a country that is flying too many of its own flags all over the place is a sign of a country in trouble and short on confidence.
Which is true
What PB does not seem to understand is that maybe 35-40% of the country (possibly a lot more in the right context) simply do not give a fuck, any more, if you call them "racist", "gammons", "Nazis", whatever. They've heard it for fifty years, and they've been scorned for fifty years, and they've been ignored, in terms of their views on mass immigration for the same fifty years, and as a result their towns, cities and country have been transformed in a way they not only did not vote for, but expressly voted AGAINST
The lies are now coming back to haunt the liars, and a bill is about to be presented. I prefer the German term. Die Rechnung
Not entirely surprised you prefer the German.
Droll
It is true tho, the German language is generally unpretty, and sometimes quite harsh, but on occasions that is an advantage
DIE RECHNUNG! is fabulous in its emphatic anger
I have long cherished an anecdote I heard, that the Italian police have to train their dogs in German, because dogs simply don't obey the fey mellifluous babble of orders in Italian, it sounds like someone reciting a nice menu. But if the dogs are told "SITZEN!!!" then they bloody well do it, in terror
Almost certainly untrue, but I will continue to believe it, coz
I love the comparisons of the Euro languages for Butterfly.
French - Papillon Italian - farfalla Spanish - Mariposa Portuguese - borboleta
And then the Germans come along and order what sounds like an instruction for a mass killing with a shout of “Schmeterling”.
How you feel about the sound of a language is mostly about how you feel about the speakers of the language, rather than a preference for particular sounds.
Even in your example "Schmetterling" is quite a similar collection of sounds to "butterfly". "Schmetten" means cream (like smetana) so the meaning is also connected. Buttervogel is an old German word for butterfly.
It's simply not true, but you go on believing it
Danish IS ugly, German IS harsh, Russian IS darkly poetic, etc
Darkly poetic my arse.
Clearly different languages have different sounds, but if you hear an order for mass killing in the sounds ˈʃmɛtɐlɪŋ that is 100% your associations with Germans and Germany and 0% the actual sounds.
You really are humourless. My comment was a glib way of highlighting its harshness using a trope. It’s not remotely my view of Germans, I have German family who I love and have a good number of German friends and colleagues.
Some of your best friends are German?
I understand the humour, but I actually think it's an interesting question how much of our emotional reaction to a language can be ascribed to the actual sounds of the language. In this example I think it's pretty clear - ˈʃmɛtɐlɪŋ and mass killings? Nothing to do with the sounds. If shouted by an evil SS officer in a war movie? Sure, though a weird thing to shout.
It's impossible to discuss these things with Leon, who is always incapable of differentiating between his subjective opinions and anything approaching objective reality, but you are usually better.
I kind of agree. I have a theory that even the most anodyne English language pop song suddenly becomes full of portent and noom (to use a Leonism) when sang in German, but I’m aware that’s almost entirely down to my own cultural & historical filters.
Because it's an easy way for a small number of bored people to make a big impression?
The sad thing is that the St George's Cross and the Union flag are once again getting tainted by association with the thuggish nationalist right. I've put up St George's Cross flags and bunting during recent football tournaments but I'm not sure I would again.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Even Rod Liddle wrote in this week's Fint Knapper Gazette that a country that is flying too many of its own flags all over the place is a sign of a country in trouble and short on confidence.
Which is true
What PB does not seem to understand is that maybe 35-40% of the country (possibly a lot more in the right context) simply do not give a fuck, any more, if you call them "racist", "gammons", "Nazis", whatever. They've heard it for fifty years, and they've been scorned for fifty years, and they've been ignored, in terms of their views on mass immigration for the same fifty years, and as a result their towns, cities and country have been transformed in a way they not only did not vote for, but expressly voted AGAINST
The lies are now coming back to haunt the liars, and a bill is about to be presented. I prefer the German term. Die Rechnung
Not entirely surprised you prefer the German.
Droll
It is true tho, the German language is generally unpretty, and sometimes quite harsh, but on occasions that is an advantage
DIE RECHNUNG! is fabulous in its emphatic anger
I have long cherished an anecdote I heard, that the Italian police have to train their dogs in German, because dogs simply don't obey the fey mellifluous babble of orders in Italian, it sounds like someone reciting a nice menu. But if the dogs are told "SITZEN!!!" then they bloody well do it, in terror
Almost certainly untrue, but I will continue to believe it, coz
I love the comparisons of the Euro languages for Butterfly.
French - Papillon Italian - farfalla Spanish - Mariposa Portuguese - borboleta
And then the Germans come along and order what sounds like an instruction for a mass killing with a shout of “Schmeterling”.
How you feel about the sound of a language is mostly about how you feel about the speakers of the language, rather than a preference for particular sounds.
Even in your example "Schmetterling" is quite a similar collection of sounds to "butterfly". "Schmetten" means cream (like smetana) so the meaning is also connected. Buttervogel is an old German word for butterfly.
It's simply not true, but you go on believing it
Danish IS ugly, German IS harsh, Russian IS darkly poetic, etc
Darkly poetic my arse.
Clearly different languages have different sounds, but if you hear an order for mass killing in the sounds ˈʃmɛtɐlɪŋ that is 100% your associations with Germans and Germany and 0% the actual sounds.
You really are humourless. My comment was a glib way of highlighting its harshness using a trope. It’s not remotely my view of Germans, I have German family who I love and have a good number of German friends and colleagues.
Some of your best friends are German?
I understand the humour, but I actually think it's an interesting question how much of our emotional reaction to a language can be ascribed to the actual sounds of the language. In this example I think it's pretty clear - ˈʃmɛtɐlɪŋ and mass killings? Nothing to do with the sounds. If shouted by an evil SS officer in a war movie? Sure, though a weird thing to shout.
It's impossible to discuss these things with Leon, who is always incapable of differentiating between his subjective opinions and anything approaching objective reality, but you are usually better.
I kind of agree. I have a theory that even the most anodyne English language pop song suddenly becomes full of portent and noom (to use a Leonism) when sang in German, but I’m aware that’s almost entirely down to my own cultural & historical filters.
Nena’s 99 Luftballons/Red Balloons is almost two different song in the two languages. The English version feels like a relatively light good pop tune to the English ear but the original German version is powerful and angsty and infinitely better for it.
Bowie’s Heroes/Helden is pretty weighty in English but the German version has an extra power I think. Here’s the full Sturm und Drang.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Interesting. So are you claiming the Scots have an inferiority complex?
Those flying a Saltire in their gardens? I think that's at least part of it, yes.
The thing about the English (and I guess the UK as whole) is that they have not had a revolution and they haven't overthrown an oppressor, so they don't need to define themselves against one in the same way as the Americans, the Scottish, the Welsh, the French etc do.
The one thing they can cling to is the Norman Invasion, hence the febrile fascination with Anglo-Saxons. Godwinson's flag was a white soldier on a red field, if anyone is looking for ideas...
Speaking of which the new BBC drama on the Norman Conquest has just finished its first episode on BBC1 focusing on the lead up to Edward the Confessor's coronation
Which is getting dreadful reviews. Shame, it's such a good story as told by the Rest is History.
I'll give it a go tomorrow.
I don’t think the BBC have it in them to make good drama anymore. You hear BBC and you know it’s going to be crap. I’m open to counter-arguments.
It’s sad, I pretty much grew up on “prestige British drama”.
Something this intriguing needed the Wolf Hall (series 1) treatment. Just do the politics in an impossibly serious way, otherwise it's too like The Last Kingdom.
(I haven't actually seen it yet, just guessing it's going to be OTT on the bants and the battles).
I thought it was fine set the scene with Emma of Normandy, the Godwinsons, Edward the Confessor and William of Normandy.
Followed the Excellent Narrow Road to the Deep North from the last few weeks too
My view of King and Conqueror so far is that it is utterly dire.
I was so looking forward to having a decent serious history/warfare late summer drama series to binge watch.
Jeez.
Could a streaming service make something worse than this BBC bilge?
Surely the key actors would rather die than tell wikipedia they were in this?
It is ridiculously unclear what is going on, right from the get go; who is who, where is where, why is why and yet there are far too many mini-scenes where they try and establish that this is:
a) a long time ago - so someone plays what looks like a lute (???eh?? saxons? ), people prat around cooking with squirrels over a twig fire, frumpy women are seen clearing out earth toilets, tents are brushed down whilst uncountable numbers of sons of the actual king wander around arguing.
b) key characters from two different dynasties and countries/states are all dressed EXACTLY the same (which is probably historically true but does not fucking work as drama - am I in Normandy or Wessex from scene to scene ?? (no idea - every arrowsmith, cartwheel maker and every peasant cooking stew looks the same). The scenes literally are impossible to split - maybe that's the modern lefty drama way of pointing out that all sides in a war are the same??
c) The usual tedious shit whereby directors of historical dramas try and show at length they understand the common working man or women by showing the lord of the manor interacting with some pleb who is clearing shit from the side of a horse, or cooking shite stew food on an open fire, attempting to make a sword - but the lord of the manor knows better how to temper it whilst looking longingly at the blacksmiths 12 year daughter etc etc. Obviosuly there's a scene where the latter gets a good seeing to in... wait for it...some kind of hayloft.
Game of Thrones was ironic most of the time.
Do I sound pissed off?
I have been binging on Netflix and Apple - slow horses, narcos, the studio, the leopard for months now and have felt bad that as a huge supporter of the BBC in theory I have neglected the cause and so on.
Erm..
Five minutes of the magisterial The Leopard tv series from Netflix blows away this weekend's BBC shit like seeds from a fucking Italian poppy.
There is just no comparison.
Obvs there is a chance that by end of series two of kings I will be saying this is the greatest tv series of all time. But ...
Most of Netflix is not that great but it has more money than the BBC and masses of different dramas to choose from so statistically one or two will be very good
Because it's an easy way for a small number of bored people to make a big impression?
The sad thing is that the St George's Cross and the Union flag are once again getting tainted by association with the thuggish nationalist right. I've put up St George's Cross flags and bunting during recent football tournaments but I'm not sure I would again.
I'm unconvinced letting extremists claim ownership of the flag is wise, but it's your choice.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Interesting. So are you claiming the Scots have an inferiority complex?
Those flying a Saltire in their gardens? I think that's at least part of it, yes.
The thing about the English (and I guess the UK as whole) is that they have not had a revolution and they haven't overthrown an oppressor, so they don't need to define themselves against one in the same way as the Americans, the Scottish, the Welsh, the French etc do.
The one thing they can cling to is the Norman Invasion, hence the febrile fascination with Anglo-Saxons. Godwinson's flag was a white soldier on a red field, if anyone is looking for ideas...
Speaking of which the new BBC drama on the Norman Conquest has just finished its first episode on BBC1 focusing on the lead up to Edward the Confessor's coronation
Which is getting dreadful reviews. Shame, it's such a good story as told by the Rest is History.
I'll give it a go tomorrow.
I don’t think the BBC have it in them to make good drama anymore. You hear BBC and you know it’s going to be crap. I’m open to counter-arguments.
It’s sad, I pretty much grew up on “prestige British drama”.
Something this intriguing needed the Wolf Hall (series 1) treatment. Just do the politics in an impossibly serious way, otherwise it's too like The Last Kingdom.
(I haven't actually seen it yet, just guessing it's going to be OTT on the bants and the battles).
I thought it was fine set the scene with Emma of Normandy, the Godwinsons, Edward the Confessor and William of Normandy.
Followed the Excellent Narrow Road to the Deep North from the last few weeks too
My view of King and Conqueror so far is that it is utterly dire.
I was so looking forward to having a decent serious history/warfare late summer drama series to binge watch.
Jeez.
Could a streaming service make something worse than this BBC bilge?
Surely the key actors would rather die than tell wikipedia they were in this?
It is ridiculously unclear what is going on, right from the get go; who is who, where is where, why is why and yet there are far too many mini-scenes where they try and establish that this is:
a) a long time ago - so someone plays what looks like a lute (???eh?? saxons? ), people prat around cooking with squirrels over a twig fire, frumpy women are seen clearing out earth toilets, tents are brushed down whilst uncountable numbers of sons of the actual king wander around arguing.
b) key characters from two different dynasties and countries/states are all dressed EXACTLY the same (which is probably historically true but does not fucking work as drama - am I in Normandy or Wessex from scene to scene ?? (no idea - every arrowsmith, cartwheel maker and every peasant cooking stew looks the same). The scenes literally are impossible to split - maybe that's the modern lefty drama way of pointing out that all sides in a war are the same??
c) The usual tedious shit whereby directors of historical dramas try and show at length they understand the common working man or women by showing the lord of the manor interacting with some pleb who is clearing shit from the side of a horse, or cooking shite stew food on an open fire, attempting to make a sword - but the lord of the manor knows better how to temper it whilst looking longingly at the blacksmiths 12 year daughter etc etc. Obviosuly there's a scene where the latter gets a good seeing to in... wait for it...some kind of hayloft.
Game of Thrones was ironic most of the time.
Do I sound pissed off?
I have been binging on Netflix and Apple - slow horses, narcos, the studio, the leopard for months now and have felt bad that as a huge supporter of the BBC in theory I have neglected the cause and so on.
Erm..
Five minutes of the magisterial The Leopard tv series from Netflix blows away this weekend's BBC shit like seeds from a fucking Italian poppy.
There is just no comparison.
Obvs there is a chance that by end of series two of kings I will be saying this is the greatest tv series of all time. But ...
I haven't watched the BBC in years and cancelled the licence fee.
Not because of politics, but because its utterly shit.
I don't miss it.
I do miss Sky Sports, its disgraceful the cakeism that you need to pay the licence fee both to watch non-BBC Sky if live, and the iPlayer when not live.
Of course you should pay the licence fee if watching BBC iPlayer
York. I thought it was one of those genteel slightly Hyacinth Bouquet meets Alan Bennett Yorkshire towns like Wetherby or Harrogate. But no, from this weekend’s evidence it’s very much a city of “the people”.
Tattier than its sibling Canterbury, most surprisingly. And humming with 21st century chain nightlife. Within a 5 minute walk of my Airbnb there’s a Slug & Lettuce, O’Neills, Yates’s wine lodge, and a Pitcher & Piano. Brands I thought had died a decade or more ago. Not to mention “Lil’s on the waterfront”, “plonkers”, “the stone roses bar”, “Valhalla” and a whole panoply of other venues, filled with the dolled up and lagered up party animals of North Yorkshire. Who’d have thought it?
Isn’t this though the English being the English. We have this false image of us from Victorian history and Edwardian times of being polite and mannered but that was the history of the upper to aspirant middle classes. You look at the rest of English history from Georgian back and we are a wild, drunken, unruly mob. It was very useful when establishing defence or taking over other countries to have wonderful drunken hooligans as a majority of the population.
We are individualistic - I feel this is shown in our lack of the family structure when it comes to looking after the old and sending our finest to boarding school.
We are a wild, Northern, irreligious lot. We drink, fight, shag.
We aren’t the Victorian English but we are the English of Beowulf, the fights a drunkenness in Chaucer and Shakespeare. You look at the violence of riots at the Public Schools and the universities.
We are magnificently uncouth in many ways.
We could do with being more Victorian, Britain reached its greatest heights in global history with Victorian values and have declined since
The age of some of the workers in the brothels? You think that was the height of Britain? Let alone the life expectancy of those who didn't go to grammar school.
The age in which we led the industrial revolution, new scientific discoveries and explorations, great novelists and painters and Gothic architecture and the greatest Empire the world has seen for good or ill.
Plus traditional family values where good manners and respectability were prized and uncouth behaviour frowned upon by polite society
When life expectancy and wages and life experiences were crap compared to today.
This is the greatest Britain has ever been, for good or ill. The fact that other countries have grown more doesn't diminish that.
Wages and life expectancy grew dramatically because of the Industrial Revolution started in Victorian Britain
Wasn 't started in Victorian times.
Wages often crashed for some - think handloom weavers.
And life expectancy ditto. Compare the diets of Scottish agricultural workers with urbanites. It's no coincidence the police recruited from the countryside.
It did wages rose for most because of higher paid jobs in factories etc than working in the fields. Hence so many moved from rural areas to the cities and growing industrial areas for work.
Though the countryside even now can be healthier with less pollution etc
It was often more push factors than pull. Changes to agricultural production including the enclosure of common land, increased mechanization, the potato blight and the wholesale removal of some rural populations forced agricultural workers into urban slums, where they found poorly paid work (often women and children only as they were cheaper). Many emigrated. Life expectancy went down.
York. I thought it was one of those genteel slightly Hyacinth Bouquet meets Alan Bennett Yorkshire towns like Wetherby or Harrogate. But no, from this weekend’s evidence it’s very much a city of “the people”.
Tattier than its sibling Canterbury, most surprisingly. And humming with 21st century chain nightlife. Within a 5 minute walk of my Airbnb there’s a Slug & Lettuce, O’Neills, Yates’s wine lodge, and a Pitcher & Piano. Brands I thought had died a decade or more ago. Not to mention “Lil’s on the waterfront”, “plonkers”, “the stone roses bar”, “Valhalla” and a whole panoply of other venues, filled with the dolled up and lagered up party animals of North Yorkshire. Who’d have thought it?
Isn’t this though the English being the English. We have this false image of us from Victorian history and Edwardian times of being polite and mannered but that was the history of the upper to aspirant middle classes. You look at the rest of English history from Georgian back and we are a wild, drunken, unruly mob. It was very useful when establishing defence or taking over other countries to have wonderful drunken hooligans as a majority of the population.
We are individualistic - I feel this is shown in our lack of the family structure when it comes to looking after the old and sending our finest to boarding school.
We are a wild, Northern, irreligious lot. We drink, fight, shag.
We aren’t the Victorian English but we are the English of Beowulf, the fights a drunkenness in Chaucer and Shakespeare. You look at the violence of riots at the Public Schools and the universities.
We are magnificently uncouth in many ways.
We could do with being more Victorian, Britain reached its greatest heights in global history with Victorian values and have declined since
The age of some of the workers in the brothels? You think that was the height of Britain? Let alone the life expectancy of those who didn't go to grammar school.
The age in which we led the industrial revolution, new scientific discoveries and explorations, great novelists and painters and Gothic architecture and the greatest Empire the world has seen for good or ill.
Plus traditional family values where good manners and respectability were prized and uncouth behaviour frowned upon by polite society
When life expectancy and wages and life experiences were crap compared to today.
This is the greatest Britain has ever been, for good or ill. The fact that other countries have grown more doesn't diminish that.
Wages and life expectancy grew dramatically because of the Industrial Revolution started in Victorian Britain
The UK today and the world as a whole is a better place due to the Industrial Revolution, yes. However, that does not negate the fact that Britain is at a greater height today than it was then, even if others have grown more too.
In terms of traditional family values it isn't, nor in terms of high culture and some ex industrial towns were arguably economically better off in Victorian times too
JD Vance: "This is how wars ultimately get settled. If you go back to World War 2, if you go back to every major conflict in human history, they all end with some kind of negotiation." https://x.com/atrupar/status/1959620851369701496
We all recall FDR boasting of his great relationship with Hitler.
"Unconditional surrender" is not usually classified as a negotiation.
I imagine that American Indians would disagree with Vance’s take on history.
Brute force has permanently settled a great many disputes.
Because it's an easy way for a small number of bored people to make a big impression?
The sad thing is that the St George's Cross and the Union flag are once again getting tainted by association with the thuggish nationalist right. I've put up St George's Cross flags and bunting during recent football tournaments but I'm not sure I would again.
I'm unconvinced letting extremists claim ownership of the flag is wise, but it's your choice.
It's not really my choice. If flags are being used to assert a particular narrow and xenophobic form of English identity then they are going to be associated with that in many people's minds. Some people will feel afraid when they see the flags (this is the purpose of course). Do I want to add to that fear? Not really. It's sad but that's where we are right now.
Meanwhile, in another attack on free speech unlikely to bring a rebuke from the US vice president:
A CDU politician has threatened to start criminal investigations and legal action against the lead singer of Die Toten Hosen for saying that "local CDU groups are throwing themselves at the AfD" at an anti-Nazi festival in MeckPomm
If that was true the CDU would be in government with the AfD not the SPD
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Interesting. So are you claiming the Scots have an inferiority complex?
Those flying a Saltire in their gardens? I think that's at least part of it, yes.
The thing about the English (and I guess the UK as whole) is that they have not had a revolution and they haven't overthrown an oppressor, so they don't need to define themselves against one in the same way as the Americans, the Scottish, the Welsh, the French etc do.
The one thing they can cling to is the Norman Invasion, hence the febrile fascination with Anglo-Saxons. Godwinson's flag was a white soldier on a red field, if anyone is looking for ideas...
Speaking of which the new BBC drama on the Norman Conquest has just finished its first episode on BBC1 focusing on the lead up to Edward the Confessor's coronation
Which is getting dreadful reviews. Shame, it's such a good story as told by the Rest is History.
I'll give it a go tomorrow.
It takes some skill to turn an interesting historical event into a boring drama.
Because it's an easy way for a small number of bored people to make a big impression?
The sad thing is that the St George's Cross and the Union flag are once again getting tainted by association with the thuggish nationalist right. I've put up St George's Cross flags and bunting during recent football tournaments but I'm not sure I would again.
I'm unconvinced letting extremists claim ownership of the flag is wise, but it's your choice.
The more I sift through historical photos etc I’m aware just how prevalent the swastika was as a more or less positive symbol pre-Nazis. I’m not sure it’s possible to reclaim it from its associations.
Comments
The French are very nationalistic in the best and worst of ways in a way that we aren’t. French governents will tell the EU/Nato to go hang if it’s not in the French interest. They are super protective of French business and culture - the academie who protect the French language is just a perfect example.
They have also been invaded and suffered humiliations since the early 1800s that we haven’t which inevitably creates a sense of national pride to counteract the national shame.
They needed to tell themselves that everyone was in the resistance where, if all who claimed they had been would have overwhelmed the Germans by force of numbers and arms.
France defiantly kept their overseas territories as France and resisted handing independence in a way Britain felt unable to do.
The French flag also isn’t a symbol of a peaceful creation of a nation out of a number of disparate parts and history, it’s a symbol of La Gloire, the overthrow of tyrants and France’s apogee as a power.
It's a railway town. Thus, like Crewe a lot more working class than its hinterland.
As well as 2 more universities than Harrogate and Wetherby combined.
It is true tho, the German language is generally unpretty, and sometimes quite harsh, but on occasions that is an advantage
DIE RECHNUNG! is fabulous in its emphatic anger
I have long cherished an anecdote I heard, that the Italian police have to train their dogs in German, because dogs simply don't obey the fey mellifluous babble of orders in Italian, it sounds like someone reciting a nice menu. But if the dogs are told "SITZEN!!!" then they bloody well do it, in terror
Almost certainly untrue, but I will continue to believe it, coz
And no, it's not good, It is deeply, horribly sad. But it is happening
I fear for the countries my kids will inherit, on either side of the world. Australia is having some similar ructions, albeit from a much more prosperous starting point
French - Papillon
Italian - farfalla
Spanish - Mariposa
Portuguese - borboleta
And then the Germans come along and order what sounds like an instruction for a mass killing with a shout of “Schmeterling”.
It was - right there in the first sentence - about flying flags. You know, fabric things, flutter in the wind.
It is massively more common to see French and US flags flown in public in their countries than to see Union Jacks in ours.
Mandarin Chinese is nearly as abrasive
Another one for your list is féileacán which is the Irish for butterfly.
Also, bu'afly, as we say in South London.
But if not, if your comment was myopically boring, and limited, I heartily apologise
Highways Act 1980. s132
A person who, without either the consent of the highway authority for the highway in question or an authorisation given by or under an enactment or a reasonable excuse, paints or otherwise inscribes or affixes any picture, letter, sign or other mark upon the surface of a highway or upon any tree, structure or works on or in a highway is guilty of an offence and liable to a fine not exceeding £100 or, in the case of a second or subsequent conviction under this subsection, to a fine not exceeding £200...
Doing so with cheap polyester numbers from China should be an aggravated offence, IMO.
I'll give it a go tomorrow.
Even in your example "Schmetterling" is quite a similar collection of sounds to "butterfly". "Schmetten" means cream (like smetana) so the meaning is also connected. Buttervogel is an old German word for butterfly.
We are (less than) three Chiles from Chile.
Taiwan accent is lovely and soft.
It's a bit like German/French in listening.
It's a bit similar to the way gorgeous Slavic women from Eastern Europe - Ukraine, Croatia, Russia - apparently find it impossible to smile. They are often stunning, yet they always scowl at you like they've just remembered you killed the family pet. A smile is a rare and impossible treasure
I've heard various explanations for this - because it is a definite thing. Whatever the explanation, it is a damn shame
Maybe God did it to balance things out. Make THESE people beautiful but also dour. Make THEM blonde and blue eyed but they sound like strangled ducks
It’s sad, I pretty much grew up on “prestige British drama”.
Danish IS ugly, German IS harsh, Russian IS darkly poetic, etc
Governor Newsom Press Office
@GovPressOffice
Happy birthday, @StephenM!
Sorry we missed your big day yesterday.
https://x.com/GovPressOffice/status/1959714515920237034
Peaky Blinders is good, at least in the first couple of seasons. SAS Rogue Heroes is really entertaining in an unWoke way
Noticeably both written by the same guy: Steven Knight
But yes in general a notable decline. On the other hand, British drama co-pros and British TV talent in general is stil making magnificent TV. Much of Succession is British, from the actors to the writers. Indeed I just saw Brian Cox, coincidentally, eating dinner in Primrose Hill, about two hours ago. Looking pretty fit and spry for 79
It's too late on a hard working day to go into the explanations - various - but they are interesting
But yes it really does make things harder for them. Smiles are effective, they charm people, a well placed and dazzling smile can work wonders. It cheers you up and brightens the world, it makes plain people seem pretty and boring people come across as nice
If your life is a constant scowl, then in the end you get scowls back
Not a great combination.
How do you like, say, American accents on digital assistants, for example?
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/flying-flags-a-plain-english-guide/flying-flags-a-plain-english-guide#c-flags-which-require-consent
There used to be a torrent site that hosted old UK radio drama's which the BBC and other UK radio broadcasters didn't make available. Lots of old recordings people had made to their own tapes in the 60s and 70s. Quite a treasure trove.
Then the beeb (as I understand it) threatened them with the legals. And the owner shut it all down. Then the beeb said even though they had the recordings, they weren't "broadcast quality" so wouldn't make them available.
So - all lost to us, the people who paid for it in the first place. And some lost altogether as the broadcasters are gone.
Still, top work by the legal departments. Bonuses all round.
You think that was the height of Britain?
Let alone the life expectancy of those who didn't go to grammar school.
(I haven't actually seen it yet, just guessing it's going to be OTT on the bants and the battles).
"Following the UK’s departure from the European Union, the flag of the European Union is no longer included in the list of flags that do not require consent."
Plus traditional family values where good manners and respectability were prized and uncouth behaviour frowned upon by polite society
Followed the Excellent Narrow Road to the Deep North from the last few weeks too
This is the greatest Britain has ever been, for good or ill. The fact that other countries have grown more doesn't diminish that.
I was so looking forward to having a decent serious history/warfare late summer drama series to binge watch.
Jeez.
Could a streaming service make something worse than this BBC bilge?
Surely the key actors would rather die than tell wikipedia they were in this?
It is ridiculously unclear what is going on, right from the get go; who is who, where is where, why is why and yet there are far too many mini-scenes where they try and establish that this is:
a) a long time ago - so someone plays what looks like a lute (???eh?? saxons? ), people prat around cooking with squirrels over a twig fire, frumpy women are seen clearing out earth toilets, tents are brushed down whilst uncountable numbers of sons of the actual king wander around arguing.
b) key characters from two different dynasties and countries/states are all dressed EXACTLY the same (which is probably historically true but does not fucking work as drama - am I in Normandy or Wessex from scene to scene ?? (no idea - every arrowsmith, cartwheel maker and every peasant cooking stew looks the same). The scenes literally are impossible to split - maybe that's the modern lefty drama way of pointing out that all sides in a war are the same??
c) The usual tedious shit whereby directors of historical dramas try and show at length they understand the common working man or women by showing the lord of the manor interacting with some pleb who is clearing shit from the side of a horse, or cooking shite stew food on an open fire, attempting to make a sword - but the lord of the manor knows better how to temper it whilst looking longingly at the blacksmiths 12 year daughter etc etc. Obviosuly there's a scene where the latter gets a good seeing to in... wait for it...some kind of hayloft.
Game of Thrones was ironic most of the time.
Do I sound pissed off?
I have been binging on Netflix and Apple - slow horses, narcos, the studio, the leopard for months now and have felt bad that as a huge supporter of the BBC in theory I have neglected the cause and so on.
Erm..
Five minutes of the magisterial The Leopard tv series from Netflix blows away this weekend's BBC shit like seeds from a fucking Italian poppy.
There is just no comparison.
Obvs there is a chance that by end of series two of kings I will be saying this is the greatest tv series of all time. But ...
Eleanor Lawson and Will Jefford
BBC News, West Midlands"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c626vxyxgj6o
And it was only later, when cities began to invest in sewage and clean water and the like, that it actually resulted in longer life expectancy.
Not because of politics, but because its utterly shit.
I don't miss it.
I do miss Sky Sports, its disgraceful the cakeism that you need to pay the licence fee both to watch non-BBC Sky if live, and the iPlayer when not live.
There's plenty of British talent, I completely agree with that, but the best films and shows now with British talent are getting developed not via the outdated BBC.
I responded on the assets held by “commercial banks”
Forgive me for not realising that when you said “commercial banks” you really meant “central bank of the United Kingdom”
BBC TV still hasnt recovered from the 1990's Mckinsey's episode, and marketisation of its structure, but radio has retained a little more. However, even Radio 3, at some times of day, is beginning resemble Classic FM more than it used to. It's simply always much easier to lose decades of subtlety and accumulated expertise than to regain it.
Clearly different languages have different sounds, but if you hear an order for mass killing in the sounds ˈʃmɛtɐlɪŋ that is 100% your associations with Germans and Germany and 0% the actual sounds.
A CDU politician has threatened to start criminal investigations and legal action against the lead singer of Die Toten Hosen for saying that "local CDU groups are throwing themselves at the AfD" at an anti-Nazi festival in MeckPomm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOvsyamoEDg&list=RDzOvsyamoEDg&start_radio=1
Wages often crashed for some - think handloom weavers.
And life expectancy ditto. Compare the diets of Scottish agricultural workers with urbanites. It's no coincidence the police recruited from the countryside.
I understand the humour, but I actually think it's an interesting question how much of our emotional reaction to a language can be ascribed to the actual sounds of the language. In this example I think it's pretty clear - ˈʃmɛtɐlɪŋ and mass killings? Nothing to do with the sounds. If shouted by an evil SS officer in a war movie? Sure, though a weird thing to shout.
It's impossible to discuss these things with Leon, who is always incapable of differentiating between his subjective opinions and anything approaching objective reality, but you are usually better.
I recently bought a robot hoover, which speaks to me. I set the language to English, but changed it to German because I didn't like the American accent. Some of my best friends really are American, but that doesn't stop American accents often annoying me. I don't think this is much to do with the objective sounds, and I can see how some negative associations could have arisen in me.
I rather like German, to be honest.
One of my favourite words is Gift. Which means 'poison'.
Though the countryside even now can be healthier with less pollution etc
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=red+baloons+in+germa#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:f2587733,vid:Fpu5a0Bl8eY,st:0
https://youtu.be/VQMXTLV14bo?si=zTCIBcffK-jpUbMo
Brute force has permanently settled a great many disputes.