05 March 2010

05/03/10

Lowen dydh sen Piran!

The Persian poet, Nasir Khosrow began a seven year journey in 1046 which he described in Safarnama.  Five civilians were killed by British troops in what is referred to over here as the Boston Massacre in 1770.  The Britannia Bridge opened in 1850.  Paul Okalik was elected to serve as the first Premier of the newly created Canadian territory of Nunavut in 1999.

Born today:  Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919), Rex Herrison (1908-1990), Samantha Eggar (1939), Murray Head (1946), Clodagh Rodgers (1947), Eddy Grant (1948), Elaine Page (1948) and Craig and Charlie Reid (1962).

For the sake of my great-grandfather, I am morally obligated to tell you that it is St. Piran's Day in Cornwall.  Kernow Kensa.  Kernewek, onen hag oll.  Dydh da.  Denbal ov vy.  (And there's my Cornish exhausted.)

67 comments:

  1. Condolences to Scherfig, Sheff & Thauma.

    My great-grandfather was from St. Just in Penrith and did not want to come to America at the age of 14, when his parents decided to emigrate (his grandfather was killed in a mining accident and my great-great-grandfather decided that he was going to make sure none of his children had to go down a mine). He never became a US citizen. The North Dakota town where my grandmother grew up was a Danish settlement -- hers was the only non-Danish family in the town. According to my great-aunt, the Danes all referred to my great-grandfather as "the Englishman", which wound my great-grandfather up quite a bit and he always had to correct them -- even though he knew that, after awhile, they were doing it to get a rise out of him.

    The last couple of days have been above 0° for the first time since November and we're supposed to have highs above freezing for the next week! Of course, it's going to be a muddy mess, but hey! Get out the short sleeves!

    I've been falling asleep in the early evening all week and not getting to this until well after everyone else has gone to bed. I fully support any plan anyone can come up with to get me the hell out of this place.

    I'd not heard of the case that Monkeyfish linked to the other day (pregnant woman nearly charged with foeticide for falling), but it doesn't really surprise me. In looking at the Des Moines Register website to read about the case, I see that a teacher has been suspended for refusing to allow a kid to build a Wiccan altar at school. Kids today, eh?

    Spring break starts in 155 hours and 8 minutes.

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  2. By the way:

    Cornwall first. Cornish, one and all. Good day. I am a miner.

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  3. Good morning. Libby Brooks is losing the plot.

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  4. Glad it's above zero Montana. I wish we could get you a Yorkshire passport.

    Here in Yorks I had the fourth brilliant dawn in succession and have another great day in prospect. It's cloudless as I write and the quality of the light improves daily - it just gets sharper and things look better in consequence.

    The Cornish take on identity always makes me smile - I had a Cornish girlfriend when I was in my late teens. I used to hitch the 400 miles down to Fowey every other weekend, for over a year, to be with her. She was a fine and vigorous lover and always referred to her one and only adventure outside of Cornwall - a shopping trip to Plymouth (the nearest large city) - as going up to England for the day!

    I once took her to London for the weekend and................ah that's a story for another day.

    See, see my battle with procrastination goes well - Discipline is now my middle name. So well goes the battle thauma that I have reconsidered my rash earlier thought that I might read some Truman Capote.

    Fuck the tosser, my life has been well enough without Capote and my to do list is still too full.

    I'm away to continue rooting the rats out from the foundations of my new brewhouse. I've given him/her fair notice to quit BB!

    Have a fine day everybody.

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  5. Fegg me - we think we've got problems?

    The Des Moines Register got over 30 pages of comment on the teacher/Wiccan altar affair!

    I would have read them all once upon a time, but now I am reborn as deano discipline - I had to pass on this occasion.

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  6. Condolences to Scherf and Thauma as well as Sheff.

    'Deano discipline' Sounds like a superhero Deano.

    It is indeed another lovely day in Sheff. My dafs are poking through the soil and my Christmas Rose is budding. Oh I feel spring in my veins!

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  7. 'Independance for Cornwall'- thus spake Peter Tatchell.

    Interestingly, did anyone when turning to the Graun homepage today get a slight surprise to see the picture of the KKK in full garb, flaming cross in the background?

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  8. Erm - I must have been unclear in my post; it's my mate who's mourning.

    Nice piece by John Crace.

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  9. Hello Napoleon, from another remote corner of Scotland, bottom right, as it goes. I used to know some Kernow fanatics, they wanted to dynamite cornwall away from the mainland, apparently there's a 3 mile stretch where this was theoretically possible.. What would a grockle like me know...

    Not bad from Mr. Crace Thauma, although 'the deal' was apparently hatched not in Islington at all, but directly after John Smith's funeral in "Montpelliers" in Bruntsfield Place, Embra..

    Can I post something on UT2? What's the form? ; )

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  10. after yesterday's 'politics is meh, like' thread, a much better effort now up and running here

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  11. Turminder:

    I've just sent you an invitation to contribute. Once you accept it, you should be able to post articles there.

    Thauma:

    I guess I did know that it was a friend who'd suffered a loss and not you, but have my condolences anyway. You can use them for whatever you want. Hang nail, bad hair day, whatever.

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  12. Hello Napoleon K - welcome, or welcome back, as the case may be.

    turminder UT2 was always intended to be open house available to all, to post pieces of interest to them - email Montana and she will send you the open sesame to posting longer pieces over there. (theWildhack@gmail.com)

    She sent them to everybody whose email address she had when she started UT2.

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  13. Ah! cross post Montana! - not yet at work young miss?

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  14. Ta, Montana, at the mo I'll use them for being at work while our first genuinely spring-like day is developing! One more hour....

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  15. Now there is a woman of sensibility - a lass eight days overdue in her pregnancy has just made a request to the radio station I listen to:

    Wagner - Ride of the Valkyries

    happy birthing dear lady.

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  16. Cheers all, have posted latest rant! Have sorted deal with vultures, door gone but wolf deterred some what by shouting and waving of flaming torches.. ; )

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  17. Sorry Thauma. I read the last three days very quickly - in between in-law visits! My brain was addled I think at the time.

    Montanas suggestion made me laugh.

    Interesting article about fear of being pregnant and giving birth. SOme of the usual evengelical natural childbirth brigade are out. They seem to find it incomprehensible that a woman might want a cesearan or, god forbid, not even want kids at all!

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  18. I saw that too, Princess, and I'm one of those who is disgusted by pregnancy let alone childbirth. Luckily for me it's not an issue!

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  19. pcc, thauma: i'll join your camp, since having attended the birth of one child, i can admit to you that it scares the willies out of me.

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  20. turminder - great piece. hope you get the better of that pesky wolf.

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  21. Scary but life enhancing for me medeve, I was there for the birth of two out three of mine. Magic pure magic. I wish I could have been there for all three but it wasn't encouraged when we had our first.

    Our adding one extra to the total of the human race is made a little less guilt inducing because dear thauma, and others, are quite happy without kids.

    My favourite post hoc rationalisation is that I was only contributing to having a childless friend's share...

    Bring on the new life

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  22. Thanks Philippa, just the irony that both Lord A, and myself promised some £ a few years ago, and then didn't cough up. He'll get away with it. I can't...

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  23. @Napoleon - by popular request, Peter Tatchell's finest hour. A classic Cif thread, 1572 posts, featuring amongst others Bitterweed, olching, martillo, WML, Edwin, and a spat between Tatch and me.

    ah!memories

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  24. Evening all

    All this talk of wolves and doors reminded me of "Wolf at the Door" by Radiohead. Utterly depressing choon, but still brilliant.

    Miserable as f00k

    Health Warning - don't listen if you are suffering from depression/relationship breakdown/child contact issues. I don't want it pushing anyone over the edge...

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  25. A depressing Radiohead song, BB? Getouttahere!

    I dislike Radiohead. My kneejerk reaction was to say that I hate them but I tempered it cos it ain't true. Who could get themselves worked up to hate by turgid crap like that?

    Sorry an' all but there really should be some house rules by now on music.

    Rule 1 - No Radiohead.
    Rule 2 - There's only one rule.

    This is sad and beautiful...

    wilcoguthrie

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  26. LOL!

    OK, I'll listen to yours then... :P

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  27. Very quiet round these parts the last few days, BB. Is there a new place where the cool kids go, and we're not cool enough to have got the Facebook message?

    Moving on, Geoffrey Alderman's blog on the Terry/Bridge affair today...Opening line, "I know next to nothing about football". Which idiot at Cif thought his views might be worth publishing then?

    The line about Ashley Cole sending "risque text messages" to a single mother from Kingston-upon-Hull (that's Hull, I think) dripped with contempt for lower forms of people.

    I dislike Geoffrey Alderman even more than I dislike Radiohead.

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  28. Hank

    Problem is, I think the Graun have come to some sort of agreement with Alderman that as long as he doesn't write about I/P issues any more and watches himself he will still be commissioned (after the business with CifWatch etc). Last week we had him writing about university exam results which, as an academic, he has a bit of knowledge of.

    I don't really read his articles any more since the "dialogue" where he said all gazans were "rodef" and could be killed.

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  29. What was the business with Cifwatch, BB? Passed me by.

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  30. We were talking about it the other day. Apparently Alderman started contributing to CifWatch which, let's face it, is nothing more than an anti-CiF hate site. I know we have our moans on here, but have you ever seen that place?

    Anyhoo, it seems, according to an article that appeared in the Jewish Chronicle which was scanned onto CiFWatch but illegible, that Matt might have given Alderman an ultimatum of an "us or them" variety - keep writing for CiFWatch and we will dump you.

    I don't know much more than that, except I wish Matt had just simply dumped him anyway because I really don't find anything Alderman writes all that edifying, or interesting. And his take on the I/P problem is positively extremist.

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  31. An anti-Cif hate site, eh? Sounds interesting.

    I shall pop along and report back later (-;

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  32. Thauma - I do have a bit of a phobia of it all. I must say - we were made to watch a video in school when I was eleven and I nearly fainted - ever since then I have been most off put by the idea.

    Hank - thanks for putting that thread up (not my request I know) but good read. Ah Cornwall -the English Riviera! I haven't finished it so off to do so now.

    I have to say I am with you on Radiohead too, they make me want to tear my hair out. As do Coldplay. In fact just thinking about Coldplay makes me shudder.

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  33. Coldplay are Radiohead-lite. I do like Radiohead when I am in the right mood for them though.

    Suicidal, in other words! :o)

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  34. Hi All--Have not posted for a few days, been in and out of town.

    Agree about that asshole Alderman. One that's admired for his detestability, surely. Which fucking bright light commissioned that piece?

    Good to see deano back.

    As mentioned a short while ago, any sign of 3p4? Always a good contributor.

    princess, hank, I'm not too fussy about radiohead or coldplay either, could be a generational thing.

    Back later.

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  35. 3p4 has been awol for a while now. Hope he is ok.

    And yes it is always good to see deano back xx

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  36. Oh and welcome back too, Boudican! x

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  37. Hiya Boudican, working all night, so hope you're around.

    BB, Hank, It's Friday night. No depression yet, let's leave it for the early hours. Well, a bit of depression, if you like, but Friday night getting ready music in my day.

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  38. Habib - fairy nuff!

    This is the choon that always used to get me going on Friday night. Full volume while I was putting me makeup on, glass of wine in me other hand...

    What time is love?

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  39. I couldn't hear Habib's (unavailable to me). But surely on Friday night you've got to work up a sweat?

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  40. wOOt!

    Nice one, Montana! Haven't listened to that in a long time.

    My little lad went all the way to the next big town on the train to buy me a Ministry of Sound "best of" album for Christmas, bless him, and I am horrified to say I haven't even listened to it yet, but it has all the dance anthems from my dodgy clubbing days. :o)

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  41. Greetings Habib--Tunes already? Why not? It is, as my old boss use to say, (when I had one) 'beer and pussy night'.

    Just been subjected to listening to our smug, cowardly, lying, proroguing prick of a PM pat himself on the back over the success of the Olympics. Sickening. Now, it has come to light that he has instructed our ambassador to the UN to abstain on all votes concerning Palestine/Israel. What on earth is wrong with the previous policy of objecting to transgressions and crimes by anybody? The answer is obvious and odious. Disgusting it is. OK- rant over, let's enjoy our friday.

    Habib, I'll be in and out, so will check in when I can. Good tunes to start with guys.

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  42. Breakingfree's just been taken out on the Chilcot thread. Ha ha.

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  43. Evening all,

    something of interest.

    I've just started 'Family Britain', the latest part of David Kynaston's social History of Britain from 1945 to the election of Satan in 1979.

    I've just read about the 1951 election in which Atlee's great social reforming Government was narrowly defeated by the Tories.

    On P.39 it states:

    Back in the Political arena, there was a significant moment when the Manchester Guardian came out against the desirability of another Labour victory. Although acknowledging that the party had been the instrument of 'a mainly beneficient revolution', the paper could not ignore the fact that 'behind their facade of unity there is Mr Bevan and his entourage of hate-gospellers'.

    I'll say that again, the Manchester Guardian came out against the party that had achieved a social revolution in welfare and nationalisation in favour of Churchill and the Party of the 'hungry 30's'.

    I leave you to take what you will from that.

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  44. Flippin eck, Your Grace.

    That is unbelievable.

    Hank - will go over and have a smirk.

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  45. I have to ask: am I the only person who finds muscleguy insufferably egotistical? I swear to god, every single comment that guy ever makes manages to read as, "If you were all as wonderful as I am, you wouldn't have that problem."

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  46. Montana,

    I can't say he's ever registered with me, he probably inhabits different threads to me.

    The one that really unnerves me is Etoiles. I must have read he had a previous hardcore porn addiction about 7 times now on different threads. Of course because Jesus saved him, he has the evangelical, supercilious tone of 'the saved'. Really gives me the creeps.

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  47. Yes, and the sad thing is, I don't think he's a parody.

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  48. Evening, your Grace

    To be frank, I'm surprised that you're surprised.

    It's been said more than once that the Guardian is a liberal paper in the true sense of the word, ie free speech and free markets.

    We gravitated to Cif because it offered the best option of speaking our brains, and then we gravitated from Cif to here because we realised that Cif wasn't really as left wing as we initially thought it was.

    I'm as disappointed as anyone that Cif isn't as left-wing as I'd like it to be. But let's get real about this, Duke, Cif was never gonna be a left wing forum.

    Cif is a liberal forum in the sense that it's a playground for liberals. Bourgeois liberals who don't really care about politics, moderated by bourgeois liberals who've never really cared about politics.

    It's difficult to take Cif seriously when MAM gets poster of the year. Or when BellaM is exposed as the daughter of Rusbridger.

    And nobody really cares. Because we're all too polite to point up the hypocrisy.

    So then we come to the Untrusted.

    Where's the fucking anger on the Untrusted about this? Is the Untrusted just another site to be colonised by complacent middle class gossipers with nothing much to say?

    Montana will no doubt correct me if I'm wrong but the Untrusted was set up, in my view, for those who were fucked off with all that's wrong with Cif to spout off about Cif.

    I'm still fucked off about Cif.

    I can't be the only one.

    Actually, I know I'm not the only one. Olching never posts here anymore, martillo and scherfig do so sporadically, as does monkeyfish. Bitterweed has pretty much given up on it...

    What is the Untrusted for these days?

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  49. Hank, you know that it's what this place was set up for. You know that there's nothing stopping Olching, martillo, scherfig, monkeyfish and Bitterweed from posting whatever they want to post. If the place has become milquetoast, it's only because the people who want to have serious discussions have decided not to bother. I set up UT2 to try to give people an outlet for both the pleasantries and serious discussion. What more can I do?

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  50. @Montana - I'm not blaming you. You know that I think that I respect you for the job you did here. But the fact is that the guys who do want to have serious discussions don't post here anymore.

    Just as the waddya thread on Cif was set up with good intentions, but got infested with idiots with nothing to say that couldn't be said in a 50-character text message.

    The truth is that the bland bourgeois locusts consume all the cyberspace that's available to them.

    CordeliaM is the new Darth Vadar.

    And those who flit from here to there, saying lots while saying nothing, are equally to blame.

    I'm quite happy to name names, if you want.

    We can all name posters who've used this site to whine about their posting rights on Cif being infringed.

    And then fucked off once their rights were restored.

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  51. But Hank, nothing is stopping any of them from posting whatever they want. The tone here is set by whoever takes the time to post the most. And, again, the UT2 is also there. Ask them to come back and post more.

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  52. Hey Montana, here's one of my faves. So good uI posted it myself.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_C64GQhhyCM

    xxx

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  53. Kicked out of pubs on a Friday night for having too literally interperative music. Bracket student days close bracket.

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  54. Here's this. "Fluff". Might be about Alan Freeman.
    Might not be.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0ukcKo5c2M&feature=related

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  55. Damn. Got to go. soon Here's Killing Joke.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dc0RuijlwbE

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  56. And here's Mac Rebenac. Dr John to you.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wG55hfh2w0&feature=related

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  57. Bitterweed, don't know about you but "Fluff" makes me miss being stoned or pissed. Two activities I sadly have to neglect for a while.

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  58. heyhabib
    Don't get stoned anymore, sends me pshycho. Don't do any drugs at all really. If I was I'd probably put his on.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IWl77o3l50

    Ace!
    ;-p

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  59. I guess we've fathomed out one thing UT is great for.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6e59Awv3CJ4

    Hell yeh !!!

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  60. I'm not saying I'm stoned or anything, but I have a sudden desire to listen to this.

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  61. Habib and anyone else still about--greetings from the left coast of Canada. One for the ladies.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKPN_AiBWQ&feature=related

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  62. Hank - we have been a bit 'flat' lately on here. I think its partly because Cif has been really boring (and not just irritating as before). Last couple of days I have not really had much to say- unusual for me!

    Of course the Guardian is a liberal newspaper, I think its only really taken on a lefty tinge because Nulabour has made right wingers like Roy Hattersly seem left wing by comparison.

    The number of posts on Cif that rail against the 'socialism' of Blair and Brown are a symptom of this. My favourites are those who tell us that Marx is so 19th century!

    So of course is Capitalism!

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