03 September 2010

03/09/2010



"We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh." - Friedrich Nietzsche

298 comments:

  1. Hope you feel much better by the time you see this, Montana.

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  2. Martillo:

    Morning.

    Give us this day our daily bread?? ;)

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  3. Apols for non-replies yesterday. Got in, ate something, conked out - sharpish.

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  4. Atomboy

    Have you heard the news this morning about Mark Thompson in 'secret meetings' with the Tories agreeing to a series of programmes aimed at selling the Cuts to the public?

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  5. It's my latest obsession, La Rit. I think bread making is good for the soul.

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  6. I like the Nietzche quote too....

    Bread ahhhh.... and cheese scones ;)

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  7. It's one of my favourites; maybe because I find it so hard to imagine him actually dancing.

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  8. La Rit

    No, thanks for telling me.

    Pretty busy today, so will have to try to catch up on it later x

    This on WADDYA:

    JessicaReed begins this thread with the admonition:

    *inserts a reminder about obscure infighing in You Tell Us threads that gets very boring to read, please stop or it will get deleted, thank you and good night, etc etc*

    She has said something similar several times lately.

    However you view the rights and wrongs of deletions, the point is that this has been said, so if it doesn't happen - or happens selectively or inconsistently - there could be reasons for people to think there is a process of bias or preferential treatment.

    Of course, it could also be that the moderators cannot be bothered or are too busy or simply don't like being told what to do or any number of other reasons.

    When you are teaching toddlers and small children how to behave, though, the business of being consistent and setting clear and defined boundaries is critical. If you say one thing and do another, not only does the toddler not know where he or she stands, he or she thinks you do not know, either.

    So, back up this thread we have a series of exchanges between various people making reference to something which will be meaningless and incredibly boring to virtually everyone else on earth.

    Is it connected to one of these obscure infights mentioned by JessicaReed?

    Unsurprisingly, yes.

    It is actually all about something which appeared on another site and seems to have set the cat amongst the pigeons here. It was posted anonymously, so anyone guessing and imagining they know the identity of the poster is doing just that - guessing and imagining.

    Here it is:

    anon said...
    I think that Cif should delete the following posters on the grounds of good taste and common sense. They've turned 'You Tell Us' from a (very questionably) worthy if misguided attempt at broadening Cif's spectrum beyond the usual bourgeois liberal shite to an exclusive chat-room where extremely tedious unfunny banter is the order of the day and serious suggestions are summarily rejected or ignored. My list for the guillotine:

    unexceptional
    damntheral
    brusselsexpats
    killingtime
    hermionegingold
    kizbot
    paulbj
    martynineurope
    lordsummerisle
    leopold1904
    jessicareed
    bellam
    englishhermit
    gillesboy

    And there are many others. Those who post meaningless drivel about 20 times a day should be severely tortured before they're painfully iquidated.

    ..................

    As someone said above, it seems that arguments are dragged across the internet like lavatory-paper sticking to shoes, from one forum to the next.

    The problem is, JessicaReed said it was not going to be allowed.

    So, why is it?

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  9. That Nietzsche quote. He hadn't just got back from Woodstock when he wrote that had he ?

    Nice work Atomboy btw.

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  10. @AB

    It isn't a very edifying sight. One anonymous posting on here, and the Waddya crew are wriggling with excitement. Interesting, in a confirmatory sort of way.

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  11. Hi Montana, hope you are feeling better!

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  12. Another nice link from Open Culture - a BBC series I never saw, with Richard Feynman explaining everyday physics. It's here.

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  13. ¡hostia! Ten of us in Spain?

    Thanks, atomboy. You 2!

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  14. Maritllo:

    I seem to remember dancing figuring in me Ma's Nietzche phase..... it was the 'misery' dance.

    But I do believe that dancing is essential to keep us human beans mentally well. Nietzche wasn't following his own advice.

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  15. Sorry, that's twice I've spelled Nietzsche incorrectly. rushing.....

    Atomboy - back laters.

    Montana - asthma attack? I hope you are a bit better today? My very dear uncle has chronic asthma, it's terrifying when he has an attack.

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  16. Montana, just read the end of last night's thread. Hope things are improving.

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  17. All the best Montana. Hopefully she will be in good proffessional hands.

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  18. Best wishes Wildhack! Hope the airways ease up. x

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  19. Feel better soon Montana. x

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  20. Off sick again. Fucking virus.

    Now then... I never got Arcade Fire until I just heard City with No Children.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unwL8TaG8LA

    Not bad. But I still don't get the "Springsteen" comparison at all. WTF. Maybe it's me age.

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  21. Get well soon, Montana.

    @BW

    I don't get any Springsteen comparison either, mainly because I'm not a Boss fan, but I love Arcade Fire.

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  22. Yep - there's a little AC hagiogrphy in last sat's Guardian guide, among other errors describing Modern Man and the track above as "Springsteen-indebted". I just don't see it.

    (It's just possible he's currently a cool person to reference among twittering young journos.)

    Arcade Fire are one of those bands who I really really want to like because they're likeable, intelligent, and interesting people, but that 'chamber-rock' schtick just makes me feel unmoved, apart from a bit queasy.

    It may be that I'm just a jaded old rock fucker though...

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  23. Heheh.

    Well, it'd be a bit boring if we all liked the same things, not to mention severely limiting to the possibility of a career in music for most.

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  24. Sorry but this flu's starting to make everything made since 2005 sound like a cross between U2 and Bow Wow Wow. Think I'll go for a walk

    ;-)

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  25. Indeed Spike. It ain't a closed shop !

    See youse laters

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  26. Well there's the fucking thing right there Spike. I don't actually mind James Blunt - not because of anything to do with his 'music' - but his attitude about it. The guy cracks me up, he's like "I Know. So sue me!" He's got chutzpah that kid.

    Muse. Now there's a band. So histionic and so metal and so prog, they've got to be rolling around on the floor slamming their fists in the carpet with laughter, half the shit they write. And people take it seriously.

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  27. Bitterweed/Spike,

    Arcade Fire- could never get into them, style over substance like a wilfully abstract Polyphonic Spree (apologies for coming over Morleyesque). And REM can GTF.

    Dutch news updates. There is still no government. Three months and counting. One part of the triangle- the CDA, have fallen into infighting over the possible alliance with Wilders. Wilders and the VVD await the outcome of the CDA infighting.

    Remember that pharmaceutical factory which was being closed with the loss of 2500 jobs I told you about? Well it's been confirmed by a judge today that the US owners acted illegally and have been told to come back to the negotiation table next January with new (and legal in Dutch law)alternatives. The factory stays open with no job losses.

    In the meantime, the workers and management of the factory can search for an alternative buyer.

    It was all supported and successfully fought for by the Dutch TUC-the FNV.

    I know what you're all thinking- an effective, willing Trade Unions system and a sympathetic judiciary towards the workers?- Fucking.Stalinist.State

    Beterschap en veel sterkte Montana.

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  28. Duke
    Polyphonic Spree ? Fuck, I'd forgotten them... risible. And good spot - Morley is a wanker.

    Very good news about that factory. Go FNV.

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  29. I liked REM up to and including Green, all went shite after that... Used to detest James Blunt, till I saw him on sesame st. Can't linky cos at wk. Is well worth a watch tho! : )

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  30. Bitterweed,

    I was just thinking, don't you think Spam Proxy Avatars would be a killer name for a band?

    Or even better, along the lines of Lloyd Cole and the Commotions- GIYUS and the Spam Proxy Avatars?

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  31. turminder
    Yeh, I'll grudgingly give you Green - seem to remember it was ok last time I heard it (about 1988 when it came out actually). Will check the ,er, Sesame Street thing later.

    Duke
    Spam Proxy Avatar and the Giyus Dimension ?

    By the way, my drummer thinks a good name for a band would be "Clap You Cunts".

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  32. It seems that my whimsical little list has caused some reaction on You tell us. It's interesting that so many Cif posters seem to lurk here without posting (their guilty lttle secret, I suppose). And it was amusing that so many of the named and shamed assumed that the list was in either ascending or descending order like the pop charts or the top twenty countdown or ten ways to skin a cat, and were susbsequently quite pleased/annoyed by their apparent position on the list. If any of the 'me, me, me' egotists read this - the list was totally random (and incomplete). I'm glad it gave you something to talk about though. It must make a welcome change from your usual gritty political analysis.

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  33. I want to form a folk rock band called 1000 tiny magnets

    how about

    Giyus and the Sheeple Pricks?

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  34. Thank you for best wishes, everyone, and thanks to Martillo for putting up a thread.

    The med tech in the ER was slightly patronising -- told me that he thought I was having a bit of a panic attack, in that tone that suggested that if I just calmed my silly little self down, I'd be okay. My "vitals" were okay, which is what made him think that, apparently.

    Thing is -- my BP & heart rate always remain normal during an attack. Most med techs & doctors usually just express surprise -- none has ever told me why that's unusual, but none has ever treated me like my attack must, therefore, have been psychosomatic. Anyway, nebuliser treatment there, with a different medicine than what I have for my home nebuliser and a prescription for prednisone. Long weekend (Monday is Labor [no 'u'] Day here) and prednisone, I should be right as rain soon.

    I am staying home from work again today, too. Feel a bit weird calling in sick when I know that I don't sound sick, but chasing pre-schoolers all day isn't going to be helpful at this point.

    @Duke:

    That's great that there's still a country where unions actually do what they're supposed to do in a country where there are still laws meant to protect workers' rights. Must be nice to live there. Although, the right-wing frothers keep screaming that Bambi's going to turn the USA into a socialist hell and they're never wrong are they?

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  35. turminder: that piece by you on CiF is not very good.

    It's a decent subject, and there's lots you could have addressed. Instead, you've used the occasion to whinge about your own parochial strife at the hands of service providers, as if anyone cared.

    Still, I was determined not to trash something so readily trashable. New leaf an' all that.

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  36. Conspiracy Grandma wouldn't be bad either.

    But I like BW's drummer's idea best.

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  37. It seems that MustaphaMondoBongo has now been banned and cannot post this on WADDYA:

    QED

    Now we know it was only CiF's version of ethnic cleansing.

    Not an attempt to stop bickering from breaking out and spoiling the flow of banter with bumpy episodes of obscure infighting, but simply a process of ensuring that the blessed are given unimpeded and uninterrupted vistas of loveliness and luvvieness for their playground and the Untermenschen are selectively silenced.

    As if that was not obvious from the start.

    You have finally managed to ensure that the new editor will be handed a neutered, crippled and homogenised CiF which not only welcomes censorship, gagging and hobbling, but actively pleads for it.

    Quite an achievement for people who would pretend to be intelligent entities operating in a free society to impose upon themselves with only a minimal bit of whistling and prodding to steer you bleating delightedly into the moral slaughterhouse.

    Well done!

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  38. First Album "With The Sheeples" ...

    anon - can you sort out the current muddle over there "managment consultants", "bloated public services" and "the left". It's like all the right words are there but someone's given them to the lower sixth.

    Ta.

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  39. Of course, someone else has posted it now - to be deleted momentarily.

    Oh, the blessed Ciferati - the poor, deluded CiFerarseholes!

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  40. Posting on behalf of Turm. I didn't think I'd ever heard of the guy, but I have heard the song that that is parodying, so I guess I have.

    Can't say as that I've ever heard Arcade Fire or Polyphonic Spree, either, but I fucking love R.E.M.

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  41. Too kind Peter, I'm sure you could have savaged my modest effort, glad the leaf is remaining turned.

    @BW First Album "We The Sheeple" ...

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  42. Bitterweed/Thauma

    Spam Proxy Avatar and the Giyus Dimension and Conspiracy Grandma- great shouts. I also think GIYUS finest handle- AnalRusebringer would be a good un.

    Montana,

    yeah, it's a good result. I still think they'll want to close the factory in january but the factory is now subject to alternative buyers so hopefully they will get someone. The key for me is that the structures are in place to prevent this type of corporate behaviour.

    However, you will be seeing the less savoury side of Dutch Politics when Geert Klootzak Wilders turns up at ground zero next week to spout his anti-islamic bile.

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  43. Cheers MW, is that 'Triangle' it'll be the back of six before I can look at you tube...

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  44. Bitterweed

    Apparently, Seaton is still collecting his full collection of bicycle clips and brown trousers before packing them for his American adventures.

    The new editor is also, apparently, poised to make a public declaration as soon as he or she has ascended Mount Sanai and worked out how to use the chisels and mallets.

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  45. The new editor is also, apparently, poised to make a public declaration as soon as he or she has ascended Mount Sanai and worked out how to use the chisels and mallets.

    V droll.

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  46. 'management consultants' are like the Templars (medieval inventors of credit and banking) - they are warrior-monks fanatically devoted to down-sizing and the bottom-line.

    'bloated public services' means simply that too many are doing too little for too few for too much money. The management consultants will 'solve' this problem by taking the money for themselves and providing much less for it.

    'the left' is a small mythical group which probably did once exist in reality, but has not been seen in the UK for many years. Their supposed politics are largely obscure and mostly forgotten. They are 'defined' today by various other groups and commentators who fear their return and therefore attribute all manner of strange and repulsive beliefs to them.


    I'm no political analyst, Mr Bitterweed, but I hope this helps.

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  47. @Atomboy

    Well, that posting on waddya was vapourised in double-quick time.

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  48. PeterJ

    Yes, so quickly, in fact, that it did not even leave the little shadow sometimes seen after an atomic bomb has been dropped - "This comment...etc"

    Blimey! If they keep banning me at this breakneck speed, I will have to think of more user names before my existing stocks get used up.

    Fuck it - I really must get on...

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  49. Afternoon all

    Montana

    Sounds like you've been through the wars again.Hope you're fully fit soon.

    Atomboy

    It has crossed my mind whether those at Guardian Towers may view the 'infighting' as being 'good for business'.

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  50. Afternoon

    Montana

    Sorry you had a bad time again - take it easy.

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  51. Atomboy, why do you have to spoil it for everyone.

    Look at it from their perspective. Twats like you are trying to infiltrate and manipulate Cif by setting up multiple user accounts.

    You have no right to complain about moderation. You and Scherfig and Hank and all the other misanthropes are precisely the reason that Cif now has a heavy handed moderation policy.

    You spoilt it for all of us.

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  52. Sounds like Christian rock to me.

    Here's the church, here's the Sheeple...

    Flock off!

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  53. ""You have no right to complain about moderation. You and Scherfig and Hank and all the other misanthropes are precisely the reason that Cif now has a heavy handed moderation policy.

    You spoilt it for all of us."


    Thats a long way off the mark, to be fair, the heavy handed modding came in when CIF became CIF 2.0 - that was when the change started, a long time before Hank or MF were banned.

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  54. Hi Charlie

    Think you're being unfair there mate.In the time i,ve used CIF i've become increasingly irritated by the 'shifting goal posts' as far as moderation is concerned.Plus the stark double standards that seem to be a factor on waddya in particular.I don,t think you can put the blame for that squarely on the shoulders of the people you mentioned.

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  55. Charles ...

    You spoilt it for all of us.

    In a way, I think you are right Charles. Whilst I don't think they were solely responsible, the contribution was probably duly noted.

    Also, on more than a couple of occasions, some people's comments were little less than bare-faced and aggressive provocation. Reminded me a bit of the old fashioned football boot-boys, who actually and frequently, had little or no interest in the game. Cheers, Martyn.

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  56. Fair enough folks, but it just seems like you are acting childish. It is only rational that cif will respond like it does, what with Atomboy boasting on here of his multiple profiles etc, and the Melissa incident earlier this year. It makes one wonder what some people do in their real lives.

    If you don't like Waddya, don't read it.If you have a serious issue you want Cif to take up, email on of the staff instead of contacting them via Waddya.

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  58. Thanks for the clarification anon.

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  59. @Martyn:

    There were 2 from you in the spam folder.

    @Charles:

    You're getting the cart before the horse. It was the modding that created the anger, not vice versa, and a large part of the problem is that the modding decisions are frequently pointless protection of ATL writers feelings.

    Interestingly, though, it is usually only their staff's feelings that they worry about -- the professional journos who should have a thick enough hide to take it on the rare occasions that they condescend to read the comments on their pieces -- amateurs and free-lancers often seem to be fair game. In the comments to my 2nd ATL offering, one guy said that he hoped my son would shoot me some day. It was left standing for several hours until quite a few people complained and probably a few "report abuse" buttons were hit. But suggest that a lesbian might not be the best judge of how straight men think and you get banned.

    So, no, Charles -- Atomboy, Monkeyfish, Hank, et al., are not being childish. And they're not the only good posters who've been banned for spurious reasons.

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  60. Montana - good point about the "protection" of staff by the mods. E.G. the stampy, fatuous Bidisha got the "protection" of a minor royal crossing the Middle East. Certainly by the time I got fed up of waiting to come out of pre-mod (several months), BTLers like Halgeel84 and Ultimathule (often just as prone to making absurd generalisations on similar issues to Bidisha) were just thrown to the wolves. (Unless someone hit the "offensive" button that is - then the mods just stepped to it like a reflex.)

    But all of this has been so well rehearsed before... 'nuf said I'm all for anyone and everyone getting over there and subverting their faux-left bullshit, even if it makes people a little prickly.

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  61. Martyn

    Also, on more than a couple of occasions, some people's comments were little less than bare-faced and aggressive provocation. Reminded me a bit of the old fashioned football boot-boys, who actually and frequently, had little or no interest in the game


    Not for the first time you're making a little dig.Something you've done on a number of occasions both here and at cif.Yet when you get a response YOU suddenly become the victim.A characteristic you share IMO with both Kiz and Bru.So perhaps you'd be good enough to explain to me how you justify that double standard.Cos i,m fucked if i know.

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  62. Afternoon all

    Here are Take back parliament meetings and events all over the country for anyone who fancies going along.

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  63. Actually Montana it was *their* (Halgeel and Ultima) getting banned that really pissed me off ... I thought they were nuts a lot of the time, and antagonistic, but their removal displayed what a lot of people suspected the business model for CiF has become... bland, carefully contained forum for passing comment on disconected and disjointed "issues".

    As I said before, it had every opportunity to bring the investigative clout of a Private Eye and the acuity and depth of a New left Review to the internet and have people engage, but Instead we get... Guardian Facebook.

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  64. "It was the modding that created the anger, not vice versa, and a large part of the problem is that the modding decisions are frequently pointless protection of ATL writers feelings."

    Yep, before the modding turned Orwellian no one had any need of multiple monikers - nor did they want them. People generally like posting under one name - its how they recognise each other.

    The Graun started deleting criticism of its writers if it was particularly robust, or if it highlighted a particularly embarrassing aspect of the writer's hypocrisy (or if the new moderation itself was mentioned). They could have printed less nonsense or told their writers to grow a thicker skin, instead they just started culling comments all over the shop.

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  65. I didn't realise that Halgeel had been banned. Actually she was one of the few commenters that I really liked, even if some of her views were strongly held, even when they occasionally went against the unchangeable grain of some of the the more "populist, anarchic or progressive" of commenters.

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  67. Martyn

    #I am a very boring left-wing radical. Just don't expect me to support fascist cunts who think they are in the left.#

    Loved this mate...just do me a favour...explain how the fuck you see fit to describe yourself as 'radical'. Presumably you're using radical in either a) it's fundamental sense or b) you see yourself as some kind of creative maverick?

    If it's option a)

    ...then maybe you'd like to explain why you come across as a smug liberal tosser

    If it's b)

    ...then maybe you'd care to explain why you've always been such a nondescript, inconsequential, bog-standard, post-by-numbers, boring and pointless waste of space

    While you're at it, try and come to terms with the fact that the 'formidable reputation' you imagine surrounds you simply has no existential status outside of your bloated and self-pitying imagination. You seem to be a very frequent (almost to the point of obsessional) poster yet your 'work' has so little substance that you do little more than haunt the fuckin place...what the fuck are you all about Martyn.

    I'm off out in a minute Martyn..may or may not be back later...so do your worst matey...I'd 'love' to stick around for a slanging match only...if previous experience is anything to go by..

    1) You'd wimp out with a petulant little "fuck off cunt" after 5 minutes and scurry back under the sideboard

    2) any sense of achievement in wiping the floor with your smug little coupon would only rank alongside that I'd achieve by kicking a screaming infant and running off with his ice cream.

    Charles

    Since you clearly know fuck all about it..shut the fuck up eh sonny...

    oh... and...I seem to recall you have a deal of respect for little Martyn...I must admit I've never read many of your posts but I find already that I'm detecting in you a somewhat inflated and conceited sense of your own worth concerning your judgements and opinions...can't imagine why, but there you go...here's a tip...next time you evaluate a poster, bear the following criteria in mind: style, content, originality, logical consistency and coherence, humour; but above all...whether or not you're dealing with a full-on, full-time, self-loving ultra-bore...do this BEFORE you arrive at a conclusion.

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  68. Martyn

    OK so on 'Planet Martyn' you get to say what you like, how you like and to who you like.But if someone comes back at you with a response you don't like then you're being picked on and the other person is causing the problem.You see Martyn on 'Planet Paul' that's a classic case of double standards-dishing it out but not being able to take it.

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  69. Wasn't she ?? I could of laid odds... I stand corrected. But my off-pissment stands - along with the very awkward questions, highly well-written fiskings, they culled some real headbangers to make the whole package more mainstream; more safe; more marketable. Or meerkatable. I sometimes liked the headbangers as much as the dour professorial types and the old trots and anarchists.

    Alan Rusbridgers recently declared 'pride' at Guardian Online having "2,000,000 members" speaks volumes. Who gives a fuck about the odd empassioned and politically awkward poster getting shot ?

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  70. #I didn't realise that Halgeel had been banned. Actually she was one of the few commenters that I really liked#

    I remember Halgeel...which of course means that her posts were sufficiently engaging to have registered

    Sure as fuck don't recall you from the past Martyn...in fact..just who the fuck are you?..thought you were a relatively recent addition...have you changed your name?

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  72. monkeycunt: are you dying from bowel cancer, or something?

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  74. #are you dying from bowel cancer, or something?#

    What is that?..humour?..insult?..projection?

    see...you're such a useless lightweight little prick..you can't even insult people properly..just comes across as juvenile and petulant...you're not worth bothering with

    I'll check in later and see if your head's exploded..laters Marty

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  76. Not taking sides Martyn,but that long post from BW is twelve-bore shit hot, whatever the merits of its target.

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  77. "Not taking sides Martyn,but that long post from BW is twelve-bore shit hot, whatever the merits of its target."

    Do you mean MF? 16:24? Presumably so. I didnt know BW was even rowing with anyone.

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  78. Sorry, meant MF.

    And Martyn, I know I'm not one to talk, but cool it with the tirades.

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  79. Welcome to all the people lurking from Spain.

    Please feel free to join in at any time.

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  80. "And Martyn, I know I'm not one to talk, but cool it with the tirades."

    lol, you know you've been bolshy when even the Bracken is telling you to cool it... Though you have stuck quite well to your "new leaf" mindset, Peter, a good effort so far i wont deny.

    Anyways, see you all later, off home.

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  81. Martyn

    Just looked at Waddaya...well done mate..one of your post got 3 recommends...so that's you and your mam and..yes...it seems someone else actually thought it was worth reading

    ...oh..hang on..it'll be Brain from Scunthorpe..not sure he counts now I come to think of it

    OK..Really gotta go now..there's a pint of Stella with my name on it

    best wishes

    Monkeyfish Artois III

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  82. Hi All--Knives out early today, and on friday too.

    Hope you feel better soon Montana, these attacks must be frustrating and disrupting.

    Leni, First Nations have limited autonomy . Some do policing, local planning,financial planning, but it varies across the country and some bands are more competent than others. Hard to compare to the Roma though. The natives have land and can run for public office even though they rarely do. The situation is improving, but of course a long way from satisfactory.

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  83. I see the dicks are swinging this afternoon.

    "We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh." - Friedrich Nietzsche

    My sentiments exactly although tad surprised I share them with Nietzsche.

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  84. "Welcome to all the people lurking from Spain.

    Please feel free to join in at any time."

    That's weird. There were 10 at one point.I think lurking is a bit unfair though. Why can't you just say 'observing'?

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  85. Also off to pub. PB, had that been my post I'd be called TazerWeed

    Laters.

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  86. Interesting conversation on waddya between Jay and PB re nukes. Think Jay is several points ahead, especially when he talks about Iran.

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  87. Charles

    I will make this brief by touching only on one thing which you said (because there is too much to actually argue with) and one thing which I think.

    You say that people like me have spoiled CiF by having multiple user-names.

    How do you know that there are not loads of people who operate with various names, each as unremarkable and unnoticed as the next?

    It is certainly against the rules, but how does it actually undermine the site or the experience for users in and of itself rather than just because we are told not to?

    I have only had brief and occasional exchanges with you and these have hitherto been amicable, so here is the "What I think" part, which is important because it seems to be the essence of the problem.

    First, though, a brief digression.

    By having various names and by virtue of the fact that I have posted on CiF for a very long time, I have been able to vaguely - and purely for my own amusement - see that people react differently according to how something is said and even according to such things as the avatar used.

    This means that people do not always purely respond to the argument itself, but to the dynamics of other posters and their comments around an issue, for example, and how the person making the comment is perceived.

    So far, so obvious.

    I think you decided to call me a wrecker and a twat, one of the spoilers of CiF because when I had an argument with Martyn, I said that you had recommended him as a good poster and you therefore took this as a slight against you.

    You are perfectly entitled to like anything or everything or nothing which is written by anyone. So am I and so is everyone else.

    The problems start when we think that we have to feel affronted on behalf of someone else for the sake of chumminess or solidarity, even if the argument which prompts this reaction is sound in itself and might be agreed with if only it was directed at someone about whom we were not bothered.

    This seems to be the main fault with WADDYA. It has a pack mentality and its main concern is to protect itself from any actual or implied criticism.

    In this, it is aided and abetted with ruthless, if clumsy and usually hilarious, efficiency by JessicaReed and the team.

    Of course, none of this touches on the business of free speech and the fact that CiF is not quite the same as any common or garden forum, for the simple reason that it is discussion around "news" items and is attached, however loosely, to a real, large-as-life newspaper and a free and open media is supposed to be one of the cornerstones of democracy.

    You may think that when such media seem to be deliberately and thoughtlessly adopting procedures which hobble or distort free speech, it is of no consequence and we should all just shut up and do as we are told for fear of spoiling the lovely party which other, more wonderful people, seem to be enjoying.

    I don't and I thought you had resigned from CiF anyway for your own reasons, so why would you be bothered?

    ReplyDelete
  88. Moderators

    or

    Montana, Thauma and Martillo

    I seem to have become a Giyus Spam Surrender Monkey.

    To develop an idea, you may now:

    1. Delete it.
    2. Edit it and just post the sanitised version.
    3. Pretend you cannot find it.
    4. Ban me.
    5. Knock together a set of user guidelines, claim infallibility and say that it was deleted for reasons which are too secret to be revealed for fear of making the universe come unstuck.
    6. Do a Matt Seaton and send me an email in which you just keep saying how much you hate me and asking why I keep hiding behind fake names.

    Now, do you want to open the box or take the money?

    ReplyDelete
  89. Montana, MF, et al.

    Instead of arguing who was the 'original sinner' or over 'who started it' and using this as a justification for petulent and childish behaviour, ie setting up multiple accounts and trolling on Waddya- surely the best thing to do is be as upstanding and mature as possible- a surefire way of winning and preserving your integrity. The old arguement about stooping to their level, I believe.

    Have a nice weekend.

    ReplyDelete
  90. Hi Leni

    I was just about to post the same suggestion on Waddya for a PP on self-emplomemt.Good thinking.Self-employed people generally work longer hours than employees and register higher levels of job satisfaction.The downside is that work can be precarious,getting some people to pay up can be problem and you get no automatic right to welfare benefits in periods of illness or unemployment.But for some people self employment may be the only route out of unemployment as opposed to just being a choice.

    ReplyDelete
  91. "1. Delete it.
    2. Edit it and just post the sanitised version.
    3. Pretend you cannot find it.
    4. Ban me.
    5. Knock together a set of user guidelines, claim infallibility and say that it was deleted for reasons which are too secret to be revealed for fear of making the universe come unstuck.
    6. Do a Matt Seaton and send me an email in which you just keep saying how much you hate me and asking why I keep hiding behind fake names.

    It's been let out of the spam tin, Atomboy. Was that a joke or incipient paranoia?

    ReplyDelete
  92. martillo

    I will answer this time - a joke.

    Normally, I like people to make up their own minds according to how they see things.

    Why have one answer, when you can have lots?

    The other day, we had a clumsy exchange. It was nice to wonder and guess, rather than simply know for sure.

    ReplyDelete
  93. Paul

    Have just replied to you

    Got message saying someone else was 'trying to edit' - whatever that means.

    Will get back later

    ReplyDelete
  94. this spam bin is a bloody nuisance, there seems to be no rhyme or reason for why it sucks up our posts - is there no way we can get rid of it?

    Spencer

    Sounds to me as though you need that drink. I am raising a glass to you and your friend - I hope she has an easy time of it.

    ReplyDelete
  95. @Sheff

    Thanks for that report. There's a lot of interesting stuff there, particularly in the Palestinian section. The accounts of the internecine warfare between Hamas and Fatah are amazing. It's also interesting to see the completely opposed mindsets of Israel and the PA, one specific and detailed, the other sweeping and historical. And I'm only half-way through.

    @Spencer

    And VAT. Never forget VAT.

    ReplyDelete
  96. That's a relief Atomboy. Clumsy? Was there something I missed?

    ReplyDelete
  97. "this spam bin is a bloody nuisance, there seems to be no rhyme or reason for why it sucks up our posts - is there no way we can get rid of it?"

    Hmm. Let's try an experiment:

    TWAT!

    ReplyDelete
  98. Nope, not that word. Would you mind saying something rude, sheff?

    ReplyDelete
  99. @PeterJ well as a self employed writer I didn't have to worry about VAT. I didn't have to pay tax either because I didn't earn enough, but I did have to prove that I didn't earn enough and show that I had spent so much on necessary writey stuff (pencils? lots of pencils?) that I didn't have to pay any.

    If you saw the first episode of Black Books when Bernard had has to do his accounts... The bit when he claims to have a new system and pulls two tangled bunches of reciepts out his pockets...

    When I saw that I thought, hey that's spooky, that's my system!

    ReplyDelete
  100. Spencer

    Have that drink mate.Sounds like you could do with it.

    ReplyDelete
  101. @Spencer

    As a self-employed writer too, I remember the first time I mentioned to the accountant (who I finally got after my Black Books filing system finally collapsed due to its internal contradictions) that I may have gone over the VAT limit for the last quarter but wasn't sure. He pointed out that failing to register when you should could be penalised by something like a 50 grand fine and six months inside, but that we might get away with it if we grovelled.

    Of course, the VAT limit was much lower then than it is now. Probably bumped up to reduce the suicide rate among the self-employed.

    ReplyDelete
  102. Thanks Sheff. Fortunately she was pretty out of it and I doubt she will be very aware.

    Once I went to see an elderly blind lady in the Royal Free. I had been walking her guide dog for years. As I walked in they were furiously working to keep her alive as her sister and niece stood by wailing. That was really traumatic because her face was contorted with pain and I just thought, what the fuck are they doing this for?

    Same thing today really, they told me that they are still actively treating her but I have no idea why. One look and I knew she was not coming back home.

    We are very bad at managing death in this culture, if you ask me.

    ReplyDelete
  103. @Spencer

    Just caught up with your other posts. Must have been a tough day. Commiserations.

    ReplyDelete
  104. "We are very bad at managing death in this culture, if you ask me."

    Too right and I'm sorry about your friend. I'm raising a glass to you too and to a dear friend I lost a few years back.

    ReplyDelete
  105. @PeterJ

    I should admit here that I got away with self assessment purely because of the fact that I had the blind luck of having a brother in law who worked for the tax.

    So I just put all my crumpled reciepts in an envelope, scribbled what I could remember I had earned down and sent it off to him in Glasgow.

    He isn't a tax man any more though so I doubt if I could get him to save my bacon if I went back to self-employment.

    Thanks for the sympathy folks, but I am OK. It's part of my job and I go through it fairly regularly. Just having a wee vent.

    Actually it was more distressing last time she was in hospital because she hates hospitals and heights and they tried to move her up to the third floor while I was there: complete freak out. They had to give up in the end as she was so agitated.

    Now she is on the tenth floor and has no idea.

    ReplyDelete
  106. Evening folks.

    Praise for William Hague's "brilliance" on Radio 4 just now - do I dance or laugh?

    Hope Montana is feeling better after her close encounter with the prat in ER. And btw MW, I agree with something you said the other night about the non-CFC inhalers - absolutely crap. Ask your doc if there's a dry powder inhaler available for your asthma, they are clinically more effective.

    ReplyDelete
  107. exiled ...

    Debate is discouraged. What CIF wants is hundreds of disconected posts parroting what people saw on breakfast TV that morning.

    A bit like the mother and father of all media pile ups. With a few on the sidelines, shaking their heads and asking "what the hell happened here?"

    That's the thing with the printed Graun isn't it, especially over here in El Cid land, as you don't get the paywall avoiders, the righteous brothers or the ritual trolls. I usual just read the pieces I'm interested in, maybe make a comment, maybe read others comments, or not, and occasionally will argue the toss with someone.

    ReplyDelete
  108. "The thinking goes like this - people with opinions scare away people who don't have any opinions, so let's go for the zombie vote....

    Debate is discouraged. What CIF wants is hundreds of disconected posts parroting what people saw on breakfast TV that morning."


    I think thats about the sum of it. Why waste all those hits and revenue just to maintain a slightly more interesting level of debate? The place went swiftly downhill.

    ReplyDelete
  109. Martyn

    A bit like the mother and father of all media pile ups. With a few on the sidelines, shaking their heads and asking "what the hell happened here?"

    They're not going to do that for long though, are they? Sooner or later they're going to give up and go home.

    I can't believe what's happened to CIF in the last couple of years - it's been well and truly fucked. It's got nothing to do with waddya itself, but that becomes the focus for a lot of anger.

    A lot of it probably comes from the perception that waddya regulars are being bought off with "C's" - many of the commissioned articles don't seem to have a lot of point. That's not a criticism of the writers, so much as the system.

    ReplyDelete
  110. @Martyn

    Don't try arguing the toss with Buddhists. I tried to lower the tone a bit on thisthread the other night and all I got was them beaming beatifically at me. Bastards!

    ReplyDelete
  111. Jay

    Why waste all those hits and revenue just to maintain a slightly more interesting level of debate? The place went swiftly downhill.

    I think that's right, and waddya, as a sounding board for the whole site is the place where you notice what's happening first. Jess doesn't help much - the problem isn't that waddya regulars are cliquey, it's that Jess is cliquey.

    She surrounds herself with those she wants to, and nobody else gets a look in. I think I've had about two ackowledgements from her in the last year...

    ReplyDelete
  112. @charles - I don't want to sound arrogant but, fuck it anyway, I was one of the posters who made Cif worthwhile and readable.

    I had opinions, forcefully expressed and backed up by rational arguments and facts.

    I was on the Left, but not on the Guardian-approved left.

    I despised the Cif worldview, all that old bollox about social justice as long as it looked sexy on a poster or a t-shirt.

    And as long as social justice meant equal opportunities for blacks and Asians to get jobs in manual working-class jobs while the media jobs were sewn up according to patronage, nepotism and BellaM getting a job on Cif because her dad edits the paper.

    Hampstead liberals make me laugh. They care so much about justice and equality as long as it doesn't impinge on them personally, as long as it doesn't mean removing charitable status from private schools and as long as "quotas" don't impact on Jay Rayner, Victoria Coren, Seuamas Milne, Polly Toynbee, Isabella Rusbridger getting the jobs they deserve.

    As for the idea that me, or MF, or scherfig or whoever, took the piss out of Cif by using multiple id's - why would we?

    I posted on Cif as Hank for a year or more and everyone knew me under that name. I had built up a persona that people knew, for good or ill, and read my posts and responded to them.

    It kept me true to myself, it meant that I wanted to live up to whatever reputation I had. When I got banned, I came back on under names but didn't care as much about what I said as I had done previously.

    NapK - you're like a lot of precocious teenagers. You've got a small amount of wisdom and very little judgement.

    You don't know what it meant to have my id taken away and you really don't have a fucking clue about pretty much anything else outside your own little world.

    ReplyDelete
  113. OK, sorry, haven't caught up but...

    Ulster 27 - 26 Ospreys!!!

    I am ecstatic.

    ReplyDelete
  114. Have just heard this remake of an old Carole King number.It's byThe Revelations featuring Tre Williams Enjoy!

    ReplyDelete
  115. I'd be ecstatic too... that's a lot of Ospreys in such a small province!

    ReplyDelete
  116. Ospreys are champs ... mind you, they didn't play their star player, former Ulster player and default Irish no. 14, the godly Tommy Bowe....

    ReplyDelete
  117. Hank: I know I might be wrong, but I always laboured under the impression that you were politically in the general Ken Livingston/Left zone of the party .

    ReplyDelete
  118. thaumaturge: just read the writeup on the Ospreys web site. Sounded like a good game.

    ReplyDelete
  119. Oh, er, Exiled: this is no time for levity as we revel in our glorious victory.

    ReplyDelete
  120. HankScorpio

    You don't know what it meant to have my id taken away

    I didn't either until the first time it happened to me. I sat there thinking "how dare the fuckers take away my username. It's mine".

    Then slowly it dawned on me that they can't take it away - all they can do is stop me using it on one site on the web... I wrote emails to Matt Seaton, I started a (now defunct) blog, I posted elsewhere.

    This time when it happened, I didn't lose any sleep, and when they restored my posting rights, I couldn't be arsed to post much.

    Sometimes things come to a natural end - maybe CIF has? Either way, exiledlondoner isn't going to die with it.

    ReplyDelete
  121. Leni: re. my user name - it's one that I was nailed with in Cordoba. It's a andalusian flamenco tradition, apparently, nothing to do with nobs amd nobility. The old flag avatar is that of the Spanish Republic (pre-dictatorship).

    ReplyDelete
  122. Martyn - it was good, made more of a nail-biter by Ulster fly-half not being a great kicker.

    ReplyDelete
  123. thaumaturge

    If you draw Biaritz away in the Heineken Cup, I'll buy you a drink after you lose.

    ReplyDelete
  124. Martyn - giss some Andalusian flamenco then ... better yet, post on UT Tunes to save for posterity!

    ReplyDelete
  125. Lose?!? We are on a blinder! ;-)

    Buy you one if we win.

    ReplyDelete
  126. Exiledlondoner: I've only had a couple of threatening letters from the Graun. Once when I wanted to change my nick to ElSid and another time when I wanted to change my nick to BushIsDead. Oh, and there was a time I insulted a racist git, for basically being a racist git. So, I'm probably using CiF as a workout in self-control, humility and feck knows what else (wasting time?). I prefer to think of it as a long game though.

    ReplyDelete
  127. I may not know much about flamenco, but I know what I like

    ReplyDelete
  128. Boudi

    The Roma are seriously disadvantaged by not having any national territory from which to launch a political defence. Spread across several countries - with similar and sometimes differing problems in each - they lack a focal point against which to organise.

    They have no tradition of their own homeland having lived across cultures for centuries. They are again being harried back across borders and moved on within the countries who recognise them as citizens.

    Until there is a strong EU wide movement of sympathy and support for them they will achieve little. They are Europe's forgotten people.

    The nomadic lifestyle is coming under attack everywhere.

    ReplyDelete
  129. This is odd

    The comment to Boudi I wrote about 2 hrs. ago. It disappeared only now to turn up in my comments box .

    I'm confused.

    ReplyDelete
  130. Leni

    And it seems that one can say what one likes about the Roma, even on the PC Guardian, without so much as a peep from the mods... Truly the last socially acceptable racist hatred...

    ..which was why I ended up in pre-mod...

    ReplyDelete
  131. @martyn - I was never on the Livingstone wing of the party. In fact, I don't think I was ever in the party. There really wasn't a little corner in which working class socialists who saw through identity politics could crouch.

    @exiled - heh, that's how I felt the first time. And I was really fucking angry about it, and about the idea of Comment being Free, as long as Comment didn't inconvenience the comfortable cosy worldview of the target audience.

    I am still angry about it.

    I wouldn't kid myself that if I hadn't been banned then the coalition would never have come to pass, but I do think that if I hadn't been banned, and all the other prickly annoying voices, then Cif, and Waddya, which drives a lot of comment on Cif, would not have been so complacent, so incestuous and so fucking nauseatingly supine.

    ReplyDelete
  132. HankScorpio

    ...but I do think that if I hadn't been banned, and all the other prickly annoying voices, then Cif, and Waddya, which drives a lot of comment on Cif, would not have been so complacent, so incestuous and so fucking nauseatingly supine.

    I don't think anyone could argue with that.

    I think that it's important to realise that the changes were no accident - if you've read any of the "please come and post on CIF - nobody will shout at you, or call you a ignorant twat" begging threads, it's pretty clear what they want.

    ReplyDelete
  133. Leni

    Very odd.

    So is this

    Travellers who play by the rules will get the same rights as other mobile home residents and could benefit from more authorised sites under plans announced today by Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles.

    Also mentioned on something called the Planning Portal

    ReplyDelete
  134. MsChin

    I will look at that.

    The policies over travelers sites has been confused for years. Some authorities stopped providing them .

    ReplyDelete
  135. I wonder if Simon Amstell could pull this off.

    Or maybe he did. Who knows.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ha1eqHDu_w

    ReplyDelete
  136. Hi Hank

    If the Guardian were to offer an amnesty would you be happy posting again on Cif as HS bearing in mind the mods would probably we watching you like a hawk ?

    ReplyDelete
  137. Nasty after thought - is Pickles expecting a massive increase in homeless people as coalition policies click in ?

    Solution - put them in caravans away from residential areas ?

    ReplyDelete
  138. Spencer - liked that a lot, although me and the mister are quite confused about the plot. (Mind you, we've 'ad a few and a smoke.)

    They seemed to be getting on so well, then he fucked off, but they seemed to miss each other, then she was getting ready to be a bride, but she doesn't seem to like the idea....

    Did I miss the pregnancy test scene?

    Lovely music & dance even if I'm thick.

    ReplyDelete
  139. exiled

    if you've read any of the "please come and post on CIF - nobody will shout at you, or call you a ignorant twat" begging threads, it's pretty clear what they want.

    Yes, but there is also the fact that these virtual begging letters always seem to get the same reply.

    About four people bother to respond with: "Nah, you're all right, thanks, mate. Thanks for asking."

    CiF keeps being told to fuck off.

    If you divide their visitor figures by the number of articles spread over cif during a month, they are probably running at about capacity in terms of comments.

    It's a bit like people passing each other on a rural lane. The comments are limited to:

    "Lovely day today."
    "Yes, that field looks nice. Quite yellow-ish."
    "Yes, I saw a green one back up there."
    "Oh, yes, I think there are several."
    "Lovely clouds over there, too."
    "Yes, well, must be off."
    "Yes, it's all go, isn't it?"
    "Bye, then."
    "Yes, bye."

    And this will make the onlookers want to join in, why, exactly?

    ReplyDelete
  140. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  141. Spencer

    Not many people know this, but Antonio Gades used to make an excellent pizza.

    ReplyDelete
  142. Paul
    you never responded mate. Please

    hardbjorn@googlmail.com

    Get on.

    ReplyDelete
  143. This is odd

    The comment to Boudi I wrote about 2 hrs. ago. It disappeared only now to turn up in my comments box .

    I'm confused.


    What's really weird is that the same thing happened to me on Cif about a half hour ago which, now that I look at the time you left the above comment, would have been about the same time as it happened to you here.

    ReplyDelete
  144. Gear boggles my darling. Speaking of which

    ReplyDelete
  145. ...2:06 is fucking pure brilliance...

    ReplyDelete
  146. Montana

    Not quite sure what you are saying there.

    So, if we post here from now on, our comments are going to show up on CiF as well, after a bit of a delay.

    Is that right?

    ReplyDelete
  147. thauma Well it was just a bit from Blood Wedding, which is a flamenco/ballet version of Lorca's play.

    Back in the early eighties when I had a Spanish girlfriend she dragged me to see Saura's Carmen at the old Scala. Saura and Gades made three (I think, Martyn may correct me) films. One was a bit dull, Blood Wedding was simply dancing and music in this stripped down rehearsal room type set, and Carmen was a full blooded story within a story.

    They are putting on a production of Carmen but need to find a dancer to play the lead role but no one in the company is right, so they find this girl (the gorgeous Laura Del Sol) dancing in some little flamenco bar and she gets the part, but a love triangle begins to develop in the dance company mirroring that in the story of Carmen that they are rehearsing.

    A truly fabulous film, well worth looking out for.

    Only you were asking about Blood Wedding, I just remembered...

    ReplyDelete
  148. Leni

    I had pretty much the same nasty after thought when I read about it earlier today. Only those travellers "who play by the rules" will get these so called rights. Do "other mobile home owners" have any rights worth mentioning? Here's an article from the BBC which suggests not.

    ReplyDelete
  149. Gosh, BW, I have to sign up to say I'm a grown up to view that clip!

    ReplyDelete
  150. Montana, Leni

    Could it be because everyone at Google's currently running around screaming:

    'They're on me, I can feel it. Geddemoffame! GEREMOFFERME!!'

    ??

    ReplyDelete
  151. I won't tell if you don't.

    Travellers are the first to go under any democracy you know.

    ReplyDelete
  152. @Atomboy:

    No. Hell no. What I meant was, a post that I made on Cif mysteriously reappeared in the comment box (on Cif) quite awhile after I had posted it and after I had made other comments on the thread.

    ReplyDelete
  153. Montana

    Sorry, I was only joking.

    Hope you are feeling better.

    Of course, all governments are secretly developing ways to use the internet as a method of control, so it could be that.

    I still send a copy of everything I write to Gordon Brown, so he still feels as if he is in the loop.

    ReplyDelete
  154. I think we are living through the end of travelling in this country. Partly its over popluation and development but mostly just land prices. Once there were lots of marginal bits of land, odd triangles cut off by roads and canals, wide verges that no one cared enough about to fence off and privatise effectively.

    And travellers were needed for crop picking and other seasonal work. There might have been a deal of suspicion but farmers did not see them as simply a problem, they were also a necessity.

    Cattle for the big cities and London in particular were driven down droves which had to have stances for the cattle to rest and eat and the drovers to camp out.

    Even in my youth there was (if barely) space for the The Convoy to join older groups of travellers in taking to the road in summer. When my family moved to Stornoway there were tinker camps on the edges of the town.

    But it is all getting tidied up and parcelled off. The big verges are long, long, gone unless you count cuttings and embankments on motorways which are no use for caravans.

    So I think we are seeing the end of a process that started with the industrial revolution.

    I do have sympathy for travellers, ancient and modern, but I also think it is just inevitable.

    But what is not inevitable (ok what should not be inevitable) is how settlement is managed. Many industrial behemoths had to go in the 1980s, I believe, but the communities that depended on them did not have to be junked and the people who worked in them brutally discarded as they were.

    So it seems to me that the only realistic way to treat travellers fairly is to find ways for them to settle that does not mean criminalising or dumping them in sink estates.

    Well, that or maybe they can get boats and take to the waterways.

    Might do that myself one day, come to think of it.

    ReplyDelete
  155. What is Gordy upto these days/ Is he living a life of gentle retirement?

    ReplyDelete
  156. Nice, BW.

    Now cover yer ears, because here's one for Hank

    ReplyDelete
  157. Leni

    Mainly pissed off his face and on hard drugs.

    Spends a lot of nights in shop doorways.

    ReplyDelete
  158. Spencer
    "Living" on the waterways is now prohibitably expensive.

    Those days are long gone. Near enough a grand for a week's barge hire.

    And the 'convoy' days are long forgotten. You only have to watch the likes of tv series such as Shameless to realise how the underclass are coralled.

    I was there at the Beanfields, at Molesworth, at Stone Henge Festival, and I also saw how the educated, middle-classed itinerants headed for the mediteranean littoral states and the poor ones just fucked off back to city life or - god fucking forbid - a marginal life terrifying the peri-urbanites of our expanding towns.

    We fucking hate OTHERS.

    That's our deal. Live with it.

    ReplyDelete
  159. Montana and Atomboy

    I don't want to alarm you both but your lost posts have just appeared on the screen of a certain type of members only cinema club in London's Soho.Most of the audience were businessmen of a certain age who instead of getting a remake of 'The Happy Hooker' ended up with your posts which had mysteriously translated themselves into Japanese-which added to the confusion.

    ReplyDelete
  160. Thanks, mschin, not heard that one before x

    ReplyDelete
  161. Spencer

    I guess the point is that many Gypsy / Travellers just don't settle in bricks and mortar per se, it's alien to them. Some are itinerant because their business in fairs, festivals etc means they have to travel to places at particular times of year.

    The boat people abandoned life on the waterways when the canal trade diminished because of the railways and then road transport. No contest really, when you consider the time it must have taken to move stuff around the country on the barges. I agree that the very slow pace of the waterways life is very appealing.

    ReplyDelete
  162. BW

    Prohibitively expensive eh? Should anyone here win the lottery, I wouldn't mind living on one of those boats in Amsterdam ;-)

    Hank

    My pleasure.
    x

    ReplyDelete
  163. It appears that someone has been keeping an eye on Gordon.

    (Via Elegant Variation.)

    ReplyDelete
  164. Chinny
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0O-2oAvNTo

    ReplyDelete
  165. Atomboy

    LOL ! Not all is lost though.The 'Gay Gordons' are looking for a new member.Auditions are being held in Covent Garden by the choreographer who is a delightful little pre op transexual called FiFi Fong who apparently comes from Scunthorpe but changed his/her name by deed poll.

    ReplyDelete
  166. Aw, thanks, BW.
    x

    I'm off to my pit too now, it's been a long day. I'll look forward to catching up on the music & the Jay v. PeterB debate over on Waddya tomorrow!

    ReplyDelete
  167. PeterJ
    As Tony said.. never did ...
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BU-vNpmjfsI

    ReplyDelete
  168. Bitterweed "the poor ones just fucked off back to city life"

    Well squatting was still an option then. That is pretty much gone too though.

    I was not celebrating, just saying it is a fact that that sort of life is not viable any more, or won't be for much longer.

    ReplyDelete
  169. Decent song, BW.

    Not enough know this piece.

    ReplyDelete
  170. Pretty much on the same wavelength....

    To be fair... squatting will become the norm again soon... and I don't mean for industry wannabes. I mean for people with day jobs. Like the ones I knew in Peckham. They occupied a building, got the necessaries and went out and worked a day job...

    What else is there ?

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  171. Got sidetracked.

    I was looking on youtube for recordings from the Gypsy Brazil family - their music was recorded sometime in the 60s. No luck.

    I was friendly with an old man from this family (in Sussex) - he had settled in a small field there. Bit of a rogue - raised in the travelling tradition - fruit picking, horse fairs etc. Very interesting - and amusing - man.

    It is increasingly difficult now for travelling people - they do not fit into planning laws or social expectations.

    Post ww2 the roma were failed miserably when the German gvt. excluded them as victims of the nazi murderous campaign against them - declared that the executions were for 'crimes committed' rather than a policy of racial destruction. It is estimated that around a quarter of European Roma and Sinti people were murdered.

    The survivors and the families of the dead were excluded from compensation as well as recognition of their suffering. The Allies did not speak up on their behalf.

    the law was changed sometime in the 70s but very few received compensation.

    They have a centuries long history of victimisation and exclusion. It doesn't look as though it's about to change anytime soon.


    The Irish travellers originated in the time of the famines - are equally excluded and harried. Some settle happily enough given the opportunity - not all want to.

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  172. Well, if you're going to go down that route Peter, it'll end in heartache.

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  173. Habib

    Evening squire.Dunno if you're into Bob Marley but this is a favourite of mine.

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  174. Peter B. Read the following books

    White Bicycles
    Mansion on the Hill

    - and for good measure

    Bringing It All Back Home

    but by far the best...

    Ian MacDonald

    The People's Music.

    OK

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  175. Why are you hanging around with us losers, PeterB?

    Given that you wouldn't piss on us if we were on fire, is it safe to assume that your missus has dumped you?

    As for the "no, no, I'm not pissed, I'm just typing really fast...."

    It's quite sad that you're on here, Brackers. I genuinely feel sorry for you.

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  176. @Bitterweed

    You think? I can't see it being possible.

    In 1977-8 I was squatting in Huntley Street (the SPG used riot shields for the first time in mainland Britain, fact fans). A that time there was a big squat up the road in Tolmer Square, another one down the way in James Street in Covent Garden, more in Brixton and in Ladbrook Grove, the Triangle in Bethnal Green...

    There just aren't those sorts of empty buildings now. Plenty of empty houses, but they are done up furnished second homes and anyone trying to squat them would be done under the Criminal Trespass Act in minutes.

    Scroll on a decade or so from squatting in Huntley Street and I was cutting the grass in the garden of the Sheik of Qatar in Highgate. A huge house, I dunno, thirty bedrooms perhaps, permanently empty because, even if he visits London he generally stays at the Ritz rather than suffer the inconvenience of having to travel from North London to the Casinos of Mayfair.

    But not remotely squattable.

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  177. Leni I was friendly with an old man from this family (in Sussex) - he had settled in a small field there. Bit of a rogue - raised in the travelling tradition - fruit picking, horse fairs etc. Very interesting - and amusing - man.

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  178. Oops, sorry, fucked up. Too much wine.

    Leni "I was friendly with an old man from this family (in Sussex) - he had settled in a small field there. Bit of a rogue - raised in the travelling tradition - fruit picking, horse fairs etc. Very interesting - and amusing - man."

    I'm walking through the country bit by bit at the moment and recently passed through Appleby.

    It is becoming a sort of Bournmouth of the North Pennines, full of retired, middle class folk who are less and less comfortable with the horse fair.

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  179. Leni "The Irish travellers originated in the time of the famines - are equally excluded and harried. Some settle happily enough given the opportunity - not all want to."

    Not just the Irish. The bigotry against tinkers in the Highlands and Islands is fierce.

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