Born today: Ford Madox Ford (1873-1939), Tommy Steele (1936) and John Kennedy Toole (1937-1969).
It is National Day in Bhutan.
17 December 2009
Daily Chat 17/12/09
Born today: Ford Madox Ford (1873-1939), Tommy Steele (1936) and John Kennedy Toole (1937-1969).
It is National Day in Bhutan.
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Ford Madox Ford (1873-1939)
ReplyDeleteExcellent.
THe Good Soldier is a cracker..."This is the saddest story I have ever heard"...and probably just nudges out "The Good Soldier Schweik" as the best novel with "The Good Soldier" in the title. It might even be the best book with "Soldier" in the title...although "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" is good if you like that sorta thing...which I do..or even if you don't because it's Le Carre who's a mensch.
To return briefly to yesterday's main topic (very tired last night s;ept from 7:30pm to 7:00am!)
ReplyDeleteI do think that some of you are being a tad ahistorical in your judgement of JA.
I don't think we are appreciated how shocking it was in some circles that a young middle class woman should earn her own living. (She did after all feel constrained to hide her writing in a drawer when she had visitors). This of course meant that a woman's whole future depended on marrying the 'right man'. This is the theme of all her novels its not a 'great theme' of huge social importance but it is a picture of one aspect of early 19th century England and it is beautifully and wittily written.
If some of it seems vacuous and irrelevant its because some peoples lives were like that. Jane was make a gentle protest against this
Morning all,
ReplyDeleteMy young cousin has joined a Facebook group about mopping being women's work, how do I get him to see the error of his ways?
Dot - sign him up for the navy.
ReplyDeletePiss on his floor?
ReplyDeleteIs mentioning it in passing to his feminist mother too cruel?
ReplyDeleteMorning all
ReplyDeleteDot you could send him over to mine for re-educating if you like sort of pol pot style
woke up and trod in dog vomit...
Well CiF appears to plucking plucked. It is for me anyway.
ReplyDeleteDot,
ReplyDeleteAh, the long awaited backlash.
Reminds me of a story a guy in work told me. We work for a housing authority, and he used to work on the emergency repairs line, and a female tenant rang in saying a tap had blown off and water was spraying everywhere. We'll get a plumber out as soon as we can, he says, but in the meantime, you can stop the water by turning off the stopcock, and told her where to find it. I'm not doing that, she says, indignant. That's a man's job! Plumber turns up within half an hour to find the house several inches deep in water and her hiding upstairs.
ReplyDeletefeminist not Feminist stoaty (as in believes women are equal, not that all marriage is prostitution or any of the other swivel eyed theories)
ReplyDeleteYup, depressing isn't it paddy? Everyone should know how to mop a floor/ find a stopcock (ok, my finding out would include a phone call to my Dad but nobody's perfect)/change a fuse/wash clothes etc. etc......
Ach Dot ask him how many blokes he knows could do this -
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlkrN4DXvO0&feature=PlayList&p=359D4CD6E8260DDC&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=42
Dot,
ReplyDeleteAs I don't work for the government I haven't got time for pissing about with things like facebook but I'm certainly amused by the thought of some lads trying to turn back the tide of feminism or even Feminism.
You sure they don't mean moping? That would make more sense.
Stoaty,
ReplyDeleteNope, mopping, unless someone can explain to me what moping the floor means?
The irony of a bunch of teenage lads claiming moping was women's work would be amusing though...........
Dot,
ReplyDeleteDon't grass him up to his mum though. Let her find out naturally. She will probably twig when he insists on choosing his own apron.
You're right about the grassing stoaty.....
ReplyDeleteIt's snowing!
ReplyDeleteDot
ReplyDeleteIt's snowing here, too! Just fine stuff at the moment but I live in hope. I've been (further) up north this morning & the fields looked beautiful under a light dusting of snow.
Incidentally, a grey squirrel just ran up my drive and into my garden - it's so cold, he should have just stayed home. I don't often see the squirrels on my home turf as they have a whole wood to play in nearby, although we also get an occasional fox, hedgehogs and once, a rabbit which we nursed back to health in our garage.
Dot - Swifty's looking for you on Waddya!
ReplyDeletethauma,
ReplyDeleteHe found me, I've answered him, I fear an argument on taxonomy may be lost on a Strongbow drinker though..............
Indeed; obviously doesn't understand what falls under the class 'pisswater'.
ReplyDeleteYep, cider should look like (slightly unhealthy) piss (opaque and not fizzy) not taste like it!
ReplyDeleteHigh-powered literary discussion on Cif now about Enid Blyton. As so often, Orwell said it first, and best.
ReplyDeleteBoy's Weeklies
Don't be put off by the title - he talks about girls' weeklies too! (I believe his nickname in Spain in the 30's was Old 'gender-neutral' Blair.)
Evening everyone
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely arctic here, windy with light snow falling and lethal underfoot even with proper boots on. Looking forward to waking up tomorrow and seeing our ugly old city transformed. How is it in the outer reaches?
Dot
My parents in law ran a pub down by the Severn in Gloucestershire years ago, where they sold proper scrumpy. Piss water describes it very well.
The old men who'd been drinking it all their lives would piss where they stood and eventually got so bad they were handed their pints through the window. Does terrible things to your innards. It involved a lot of mopping!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis has gone too far..OK
ReplyDeleteGive up meat or lose the Amazon..
One kid each or face climate annihilation..
I can just about take
BUT..
booing Johnny Ball off stage..
poor johnny
that's taking things too far.
Too much certainty and fanaticism, quite frankly..these things have a less than spotless historical pedigree. It's all gonna end in a tsunami of tears.
Where's monkeyfish?...not here mate...he's still doing his lap of honour around the block after posting a successful link...
ReplyDeleteAbout bleedin' time...
ReplyDeleteLook...
ReplyDeletelinkin park
That was a link joke
ReplyDeletesheff
ReplyDeleteBloody freezing out here this evening. It's taken me fingers ages to thaw out. And you're right about this old city of ours under a blanket of snow, it does improve it somewhat.
MF
Glad to see the link proficiency improving on the UT, we've got community standards to uphold, you know.
I'm outraged at the slur on my integrity tbh. Outraged.
ReplyDeleteWait til I speak to his mummy about this.
monkey
ReplyDeleteseems rexi hangs out here on the qv - do you think he's reporting back to bitey? I have told him that I was wrong - as usual.
Hi monkeyfish I particularily liked that jonny said that he thought "that spiders’ flatulence was more damaging to the environment than fossil fuels"
ReplyDeleteseriously he could be onto something there
What? Sheff, you are never wrong. Oh, do you mean on your guess at the mystery poster? Yeah, I'm crap at that too. In this case I have a different suspicion. ;-)
ReplyDeleteLovely morning here today: sunny and no wind. But it all turned to shite in the afternoon: wind starting whistling and blew in some snow, and now everything is gelid. The inside of my windshield was frozen when I left work.
Good article by Milne on the High Court's decision on the BA dispute, good comments by PG and a cracker from jeroboam.
ReplyDeleteThe usual crap trotted out in response from the usual liberal suspects, who have never quite got their heads around the possibility that the rights and freedoms of the individual can sometimes only be furthered when those individuals work together to protect their rights and interests.
I'd love to see an explanation from some of them as to how the average cabin crew worker is able to assert their liberal rights, freedoms and interests individually when those rights, freedoms and interests conflict with the interests of corporations.
No doubt the answer is that they can choose to take their labour elsewhere.
When I read Cif, I wonder if half of the posters have any fucking clue about how they got to enjoy decent education and employment opportunities in the first place.
Hank, I heard some BA mouthpiece on 5Live today saying that BA staff should be grateful that they earned 'twice as much' as other airlines' cabin crew, and that they should be grateful that they even had a job when so many people were unemployed.
ReplyDeleteNow, I know that this is the basic philosophy behind corporate capitalism and the profit motive, but rarely have I heard it expressed so openly, succintly and unashamedly. And all the poor fuckers whose well-deserved Xmas breaks in New York, Tunisia or Tenerife were totally ruined by the unpleasantness of a possible strike couldn't wait to ring in and agree with the cunt.
HOnestly, though, I heard on the radio that she said something about how striking at Christmas would have a far worse effect that striking at any other time of the year.
ReplyDeleteDuh.
What is the point of going on strike it only the local vicar and his dog is going to be inconvenienced about it? Seriously?!! I am sick of the sycophancy of the State and the judiciary when it comes to anything to do with the rights of big business vs the rights of people.
It gets worse...and no, I'm not talking about Jessica Reed lecturing us drunken Brits from ATL (the Cif party should be a real cracker, with her sneering at the rest of us about "moderation" [sic] while sipping sweetly from her £24 bottle of wine)..
ReplyDeleteCharlie Falconer defending Livni and our sort of war criminals while advocating the full force of the law to be used against homicidal heads of state who lack the right pigmentation and universally understood ethics and values.
Good to see him and his old flatmate are getting a kicking. Go get him, BB.
I missed the Falconer bit - git.
ReplyDeleteI was utterly delighted at the Livni warrant - I am often at City of Westminster Mags (used to be Horseferry Road, until they closed down Bow Street Mags to sell off to a hotel development company - oldest established mags court in the country - and amalgamated the two). Dunno which judge it was granted the warrant but hats off to the guy, frankly. I expect any and every suspected war criminal to receive the same treatment, including our own home-grown varieties...
Scherf - "earning twice as much as other cabin crews" - I find that difficult to believe tbh. Did he get challenged on that?
ReplyDeleteClassic divide and rule tactics anyway, just like the tired old shit about being grateful to have a job.
As pioneered by our old friend when she let the market let rip and allowed unemployment to rise to 4m in 1982, so that the unions could be smashed while the dignity and prospects of millions were destroyed in the interests of profit.
Great post by LaRit on the Falconer thread at 8.33pm. As she says, catch it while you can, it won't be there in the morning.
ReplyDeleteHank, I didn't catch it all, but it's been a BA tactic all along - inflating the cabin crews' wages (hours worked, number of flights worked, hotel stays, allowances etc etc). Of course, if you compare BA with the likes of Ryanair staff, who used to have to pay for their own uniforms, they're fuckin' millionaires.
ReplyDeleteJust for fun, here's something from a BA staff member in 2007 (remember the threatened strike in January of that year?)
We do not want to strike. We have been forced into this position by the bully-boy tactics of our senior management. We are only protecting our terms and conditions. We are not asking for a pay rise. It has been wrongly printed in some press reports that BA cabin crew earn £22,000+. New entrants start on a basic salary of £8,000 which is capped after so many years. New entrants will never achieve the same basic as crew who started pre-1997. By the very nature of the job, there are some medical conditions which prevent us from coming to work, these are not discounted under BA's draconian sickness policy and potentially crew could find themselves in a disciplinary process for having a broken limb.
It seems that not much has changed in nearly 3 years. But BA management have certainly won the media war.
Or try this one out, scherf,
ReplyDeletecommercialpilots'wages
I'm not sure it'd be much consolation to me if I got killed on a regional commercial flight to know that at least the pilot was only earning 18k a year.
Thaum
ReplyDeleteRe being addressed as "Miss" - in my job, no matter how old you are or what your status is, all women are addressed as "Miss" - in some of the posher sets the clerks will address all barristers as Miss or Sir, and in my set the seniors are still called Mr So-and-so. Really funny business because behind their back they are just referred to by their surnames (as I am sure I am behind my back).
One of the funniest anecdotes I heard was from my old pupil master who was talking about when he was a pupil - a year-long drudge as a trainee - and another pupil had made it to being a tenant at last, so the first thing she did was go off and book herself a ski-ing holiday. She came back into the Clerks room and announced that she would be taking two weeks off at Christmas, and the head clerk didn't even lift his nose from his paper as he said "Well you better go right back to the agents and cancel it, Miss, cos you ain't fuckin going."
The fake deference is bloody hilarious - we are just money-producing bodies to them really. Having said that, my clerks are bloody brilliant, but I wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of em. (A bizarre relationship where we pay their wages directly, but they are in charge of what we do... and if you piss em off, they will give you all the crappiest work going until you have learned your lesson.)
only £18K a year, Hank, but 'benefits usually include uniform'. Cool! Look what it did for Leonardo -
ReplyDeletecatch me if you can
Ah feck - I just read that back. Two glasses of wine and I turn into Rowley BIrkin
ReplyDelete@Sheff - just caught your post on Waddya (been lurking, but don't tell anyone) - I think it would be a really nice idea, and in the spirit of the season, if we invited rexi along to our post-Xmas bash.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure he's not beyond redemption. He's crying out for attention (that was going to be the gist of my admonitory message to his mummy) and this might be the opportunity he's been crying out for to grow, to blossom.
He could be our project, a chance for us all to learn, to develop, to improve not just ourselves but the world (the mundi in fact) in the coming year.
Blackberry me. We'll compare diaries.
BB - it all sounds very Dickensian! Next I expect to hear that you are working on Jarndyce v Jarndyce.
ReplyDeleteRe the BA strike: maybe it's just a case of who's won the media war, but I am given to understand that the union voters had no idea that they were voting for 12 days off over xmas, and that many would not have voted for that if they'd known.
It's one thing to fuck up business flights but another thing entirely to fuck up people reuniting with their families over xmas - especially when a lot of these people had probably been saving all year for the trip and would lose their money.
The union was cynical and the strike could easily have ended up with the demise of BA which would have helped nobody.
I'm generally in favour of unions and collective action, but this wasn't a good move and generally brings disrepute onto the union movement.
92.5% of 12,700 members voted in favour of a strike. This has now been declared illegal because a few hundred voters had already accepted redundancy.
ReplyDeleteAs regards the staff not knowing that the strike would be over Xmas, this is a blatant lie.
This is from the Guradian on 15 Nov, one month before the vote:
The Unite trade union has predicted a "resounding" yes from more than 12,000 air stewards and stewardesses in a dispute over cost-cutting measures. If cabin crew vote for industrial action, strikes can be held from 21 December onwards and throughout the Christmas period, threatening to ground BA's fleet.
thaumaturge hi,
ReplyDeletepeople wouldn't have lost their money, BA guaranteed that they could rebook flights for up to a year at no further cost..
yep it would have been a bummer for people but not as big as the bummer of losing your job or not getting a payrise for 2 years as well as having to do more work
Oh Hank - what a sweetie you are! and so thoughtful. I shall definitely give it some thought and as you request and I'll blackberry you later, when I've consulted my diary.
ReplyDeletethauma
re the BA business - according to todays graun, Walsh once said
"A reasonable man gets nowhere in negotiations" so arguably unreasonableness was already on the table.
Caught up as I will be in all this - am flying BA on Saturday and due to come back in the middle of the strike (if it happens), my sympathies are with the staff. Although I agree going for 12 days is pushing it a bit.
Thaum - we will have to agree to disagree on BA. Yes I have sympathy for the customers whose Xmas trips could have been jeopardised, but Walsh knew what he was doing by deciding to announce the restructuring and redundancies when he did. He played his hand well, because he knew that if the staff voted to strike public feeling would be against them. That is just bullying and manipulation in my book. And a cancelled holiday is nothing compared to people being forced out of their jobs in my book. I can honestly hand-on-heart say that I would think the same thing if I was the one having to cancel my holiday too. Some things are just a bit bigger than that imo.
ReplyDeleteI guess I lived in France for too long, where they still have a real spirit of public solidarity surrounding strikes.
Scherfig, I think it was roughly 92% of the 80% of members who voted. It's still a very convincing number and I wish we had that sort of turnout in our national elections.
ReplyDeleteIf your quotation was generally known to the voters, then that makes it more convincing still.
However, I still maintain that a strike over this period is far more likely to affect your average wage-slave punter than one at another time. Of course this is probably the desired effect, but as I understand it, BA were only asking for *voluntary* redundancies. Not, in my opinion, a proposition worth sending into oblivion a lot of ordinary people's wages.
Wait until late January or February, yes. Over xmas, no.
Oooh! My lad is upstairs listening to Mysterons by Portishead. There is hope yet! No more Nirvana? I can only dream...
ReplyDeleteGandolfo - the thing is, someone I know had booked a package holiday that happened to have used BA for the flights. So while she may have got the money for the flights back (after being forced to travel 2 hours down to Gatwick and wait around until the flight was officially cancelled, and then argue with the officals, then drive back), the rest of it - hotels, etc. - was unrecoupable.
ReplyDeleteBB - agree with your sentiments, but as I understand it, no-one was being *forced* out of a job. If I'm wrong, then that puts a completely different texture on things.
Fairy nuff, Thaum. :o)
ReplyDeleteA propos the Simon Le Bon thread (swoon) and nothing in particular: best film explaining Buddhism evah is Groundhog Day.
ReplyDelete/Have another glass of wine, Janie - no work tomorrow
/Don't mind if I do, ta...
British Airways are so thick, it's unbelievable.
ReplyDeleteI know that if I worked for them, this "victory" today would only serve to embolden me. Good luck to the employees, hope they get another ballot sorted, or break the law if they have to and go on strike anyway.
If anybody was more concerned about Christmas travellers than people's working conditions, before, surely they can now see the standard of behaviour BA's management follow.
Instead of negotiation, they opt to outmuscle the workers. That tactic resulted in the creation of unions in the first place.
If the BA workers stand firm and strike, they will be doing more than risking their jobs, or their company's existence. They will be showing us all that we should stand up to the powers that be and say "You can't do that."
Thaum I understand what you are saying in fact everyone employees and customers lose out because, ultimately, big business only cares about profits, BA could have dealt with this in a different way primarily by consulting the unions rather than enforcing these conditions on its employees
ReplyDeleteThin end of the wedge, thauma. Nobody's ever "forced" out of a job in the sense you're suggesting. And as PG has said on the Milne thread, the judicial decision was wholly wrong because it played on the same emotional sentiments as you've referred to.
ReplyDeleteThe law is the law, and the judge should not make a decision based on whether it inconveniences people just because it's Xmas. That's all irrelevant.
Judicially, it was a shocking decision.
Shocking, but not surprising, given that the judiciary has always supported the rights of the individual, the poor bloody corporation, against the collective rights of the workers.
It might set a useful precedent though. Maybe a union will fight a case soon on the basis that outsourcing operations from Europe to India will fuck up the Xmasses of many Europeans both now and in the future.
I'm amazed tbh that you think that the right to enjoy a holiday ranks higher in the scheme of things than the rights of a worker to enjoy decent working conditions.
What was it Billy Bragg said about "luxury's disappointments"?
Aw soz thaum - not rubbing it in. I have to take a day off cos I have to take my dad to the hospital appointment, so not really fun and games, sadly. Still keep feeling like tonight is Friday night though, which is nice. And snow too. Lurvely. :o)
ReplyDeleteHank
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, Walsh planned this knowing full well that a strike now would tug on everyone's heartstrings. Xmas is the time when families get together - just look at the Waitrose ad on the telly, always brings a lump to my throat, soft mare that I am. I can see where Thaum is coming from even if I don't agree with her, tbh.
I have often thought that there could be more effective ways of striking, though. For example, train strikes. Still drive the trains, still let the passengers get on, but make sure everyone knows that the ticket barriers will be open, the tickets won't get checked and nobody will be nicked for not buying one. A far more effective way of hitting the company in the pocket while keeping the general public onside as they get to ride for free.
ReplyDeleteBB, ever seen "Planes, Trains and Automobiles?". I think a bit of hard work to get to where you want to be can pay dividends.
ReplyDeleteI can see where Thaum is coming from too, BB, but she's not a judge and nor am I.
ReplyDeleteAnd judges should interpret the facts according to the law, rather than reach an oh-so-predictable decision which pisses on workers' rights by dragging in matters of no consequence to the law, like chestnuts roasting on an open fire.
It's bollocks.
The decision is a joke.
As for Xmas, well, it falls into a narrative of how we'd like things to be, as scripted by Dickens, where evil employers saw the error of their ways and recognised that they had social obligations.
And that's all been proven to be bollocks too.
here is is hank ah memories!
ReplyDeleteI agree BB - that would be a far more effective and popular way of striking.... On trains at least. Don't sell tickets, open barriers, allow travel anyway.
ReplyDeleteSo (and no criticism of your idea here) - what am I missing? Why wouldn't that work? (although obviously it wouldn't on air travel)
The whole BA thing also is a sad reflection of how deeply society has sunk when our individual pleasures take on more importance than other people's rights
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI don't know all the BA history so I won't venture an opinion on it.
ReplyDeleteI do however look at the comments about how they are so well paid and should be grateful for even having a job and think, well not that well paid surely, and grateful for being remunerated for putting in a lot of hours hard work at something most people would hate to do? Gosh, you're right, jammy shits.
Hank - yep, spot on about the judge bit. I am pretty disgusted.
ReplyDeleteHelen - that is the problem, it wouldn't work for air travel.
Great comment by joemcann on the plebs get pissed on alcopops but the sophisti..cats get tipsy on pinot grigio thread won't see that in the morning
ReplyDeleteAhh BB - my thoughts had wandered - I was more thinking of the tube strikes in London.
ReplyDeleteAhh but I paid for a monthly travel card. I suspect most people traveling in zones 1-5 or commuting out in rush hour also did....
It's a great song, gandolfo...
ReplyDelete..as is...
oneofmythemetunes
...or this...you might not have seen, the best rant on the web...
hankandbru'sblinddate(-;
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant Cooper Clark there, Hank
ReplyDeleteGreat both of them hank I'm coming over all nostalgic those were the good ol' days!!
ReplyDeletehere's one for ba doubters!
love chris eccelstone a classic
tiltingatwindmillsasweallarebutwhatthehellit'sgotsoul
ReplyDeleteIn deference to the new CiF belief commentator - not safe for work, btw... ;o)
ReplyDeleteThe Chauffeur
And the sun drips down very heavy behind
The front of your dress all shadowy lined
And the droning engine throbs in time
With your beating heart...
ifcifhadabackingtape
ReplyDelete<>
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletemessed link up...
ReplyDeleteany takers?
Night, not that anyone is about.. :-)
i hope i will wake to snow...
helen gawd the fact that i might get the tuscan queen trying to convince me about nulab is enough to put me off!!
ReplyDeleteLOL gandolfo.
ReplyDeleteI like the charity they are supporting though. Something more substantial than just "give us money and we might do something with it when we have paid for our ad campaign".
BB
ReplyDeletesure it's worthwhile, I was being cynical with a touch of realism thrown in for good measure, imagine getting a "Ciao, Polly here..."
I'd most probably forget that I was donating money and start ranting, also it is a 0800 I can't call from Berlusco land (lame but valid excuse!)
I'm quite jealous it's snowing though wouldn't mind a bit here!
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ReplyDeleteHah!
ReplyDeleteCheckov just found this on youtube which is bloody brilliant! New Christmas number one, if you ask me!
Bleed the World! Let them know it's bonus time again!
cifcontrol
ReplyDeleteMine's better, BB.
Ooh, it's like X Factor.
MF's gonna be, like, sooo pissed in the morning that he missed this...
Haha BB and Hank!
ReplyDeletenight all!
*Boing*
ReplyDelete"Time for bed," said Zebedee
Night night all xx
Where is the monkeyfish person this evening?
ReplyDeleteSkiver!
Anyway, night xx
"Where is the monkeyfish person this evening?"
ReplyDeleteI've been here all along, BB.
If you've ever seen "Fight Club"....(-;
Hank, as you know, I post silly words. But in my Mitty life, music lifts me above my stupidity, just for a minute. That's all.
ReplyDeleteGood stuff already, Billy Bragg, Woody Guthrie, The Clash.
(Duran Duran, really?)
As rosey cheeked as I am, here's how I feel.
Can't go wrong with that one, Habib, but if we're going for Jagger and Richards...
ReplyDeletekeepthefaith
Hmm, interesting version, but the title reminded me of this.
ReplyDeleteTwo Godley and Creme songs in a week - I'm going to have to grow a mullet and get some shoulder pads, if this keeps up.
Off for a smoke.
ReplyDeleteIf anyone's still up, pick a musical theme for the night, to keep me occupied and vaguely sane.
Ignore this guys, I'm just posting this as an aide memoire to myself....
ReplyDelete...don't often read the Waddya thread these days since it morphed into a watercooler for the Heat crowd, but this early posting caught my eye and confirmed me in my view that first impressions count...
Cordelia: "I don't have much sympathy for BA staff taking action..."
Well, who'd have thunk it?
Cordelia, who has never posted outside of the Waddya page, and whose political beliefs extend to the right to have a cuddly widdle meerkat as her avatar, has no sympathy for the rights of striking workers.
Other breaking news: Paddington Bear concerned about the global marmalade shortage; indifferent to martial law in Lima.
How about songs about drugs?
ReplyDeleteHere's a few to get you going, habib...
kinkyafro
lsd
gram
Fuck me, it's cold outside, here in Manchester... Just like a spring day in Sunderland.
ReplyDelete'scuse me Hank, aide memoire? I'll let that pass, as I listen to the happy mondays on a happy loop.
"Ignore this guys" Hmm, sorry, but you've posted it, so it's out there, here's my reply.
Cordelia is honest.
Attacking her from here would be as bad as if I had attacked you from there... oh shit, self realisation moment.
I am worthy of no respect. Whatever Cordelia's viewpoint is, it is her own and thus worthy.
"lsd" is the best thing all angry people should listen to, but absolutely not take.
ReplyDeleteGram is perfect. You've got me nailed. Tangerine eyes and all.
ReplyDeleteTop five drug songs, in a Nick Hornby sort of way.
ReplyDeletefive
Whatever Cordelia's viewpoint is, it is her own and thus worthy.
ReplyDeleteGotta disagree with you there, Habib. That's essentially saying that anyone's viewpoint is worthy simply because it's their viewpoint. Really? No.
The viewpoint of people who believe that the world is only 6000 years old is not worthy, even when the person espousing it is your (my) brother. It's ignorant.
The viewpoint of people who think that all Muslims are potential terrorists is not worthy, even when the person espousing it is a colleague who seems quite nice when the conversation isn't political. It's ignorant.
So, the viewpoint that people shouldn't have a right to strike because it might inconvenience someone else isn't worthy simply because it's being proffered by someone who usually posts insubstantial fluff. It's ignorant.
I don't know a whole lot about the labour movement in Britain in the late 19th-early 20th Centuries, but I'm guessing that, as in the US, people died trying to earn for us the relatively pleasant work conditions under which we labour. Things like a 5 day work week, paid time off, safe and sanitary work conditions, the right to address grievances without fear of retaliation, etc. These things, that many of us have taken for granted for far too long, are slowly (sometimes not so slowly) being taken from us and people like Cordelia are only helping the bastards by siding with the corporations just because a few people might have to cancel Christmas plans.
four
ReplyDeleteWell said, Montana and I always stand to be corrected.
ReplyDeleteMy point about worthiness, however, is not based on my narrow perception of right and wrong, but purely on my broader perception of the honesty of any person's remark.
Bigoted people hide their bigotry, all too well, in many cases. Honest people speak freely. I defend Cordelia, even though I think she is wrong, because I believe she is honest.
Three
ReplyDeleteTwo
One.
My contributions to the drug themed music:
ReplyDeleteAlcohol
Ganja
Lurve
.