Born today: Charlemagne (742-814), Giacomo Casanova (1725-1798), Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875), Emile Zola (1840-1902), Max Ernst (1891-1975), Alec Guinness (1914-2000), Marvin Gaye (1939-1984), Penelope Keith (1940), Leon Russell (1942), Roshan Seth (1942), Emmylou Harris (1947), Camille Paglia (1947), Linford Christie (1960) and Teddy Sheringham (1966).
Like the ribbon.
ReplyDeleteFor anyone still seething about Delroy Smellie's result in court, some photos here may help to convince you how he could have been felt so threatened by the woman with the orange juice...
Good article by Tony Judt in the NYR. a taster below:
ReplyDeleteIn 1992 I was chairman of the History Department at New York University—where I was also the only unmarried straight male under sixty. A combustible blend: prominently displayed on the board outside my office was the location and phone number of the university's Sexual Harassment Center. History was a fast-feminizing profession, with a graduate community primed for signs of discrimination—or worse. Physical contact constituted a presumption of malevolent intention; a closed door was proof positive.
Move now made not without hitches, snow, broken lift etc etc. I knew I shouldn't move on April 1st - still, those of us not dead are a lot fitter having carried everything up four flights of stairs!
"...You know what I think? You people don't have any real commitment to anything if you can't talk about it and demonstrate it to others and get some affirmation and then feel good about yourselves......"
ReplyDeleteWell Scherf our kid, it's difficult not conclude that its some sort of basic human trait. The guys who went over the top in WWI did it and so did the Conscie's who refused to go over the top in WWI.... Sometimes its called affirmation sometimes whistling in the dark with the hope that someone joins the chorus..
As I'm sure you know when the Nazi's were ferreting out the likes of me and you there were some of that time, who lived in the equivalent of 4 beds in Surrey, who risked it all and gave shelter...
Even the lame existentialists amongst us sometime seek light to illuminate the shadows and shade to deflect the glare.
The spirits of some who post here would be more burdensome without the place and thus UT has a clear and very worthwhile purpose for me.
UT is what we choose to make it - there is room for just about anything here. It does not me to explain, yet again, that there is UT2 for serious debate/matters of concern/angst. You want a cockpit - it's there all you need do is persuade others to join in....
Truth is the place is a street, the quality/nature of the conversation here depends on who you happen to encounter as you walk along it, and the time of day and weather etc. But it also depends on what you have say and how you choose to say it.
I can tolerate just anything, but I don't like
aggressive personal boasting and I don't like gratuitous rudeness to our hostess Montana. ( She does the daily work here and in my view is entitled to be treated fairly.) Even these occasional errors of judgement/drunkenness can redeemed with a sincere apology.
What a number of posters would benefit from, IMHO, is to improve their reading (listening) skills to match their undoubted writing ones.
Scherf/Hank et al you remain very interesting posters who are always worth a read, and a serious think about what it is you say, don't loose it by becoming precious. You may be worth it but some may not wish to pay it.
Sincere regards.
If I remember it right Good Friday is traditionally a no news day, one of only two days in the year when newsagents had a day off 'cos there were no papers published.
Hoe you find a gold Easter egg, filled with diamonds, and engraved Faberge Montana ...then you could join us for a summer get together here in UK side. ( me counter is back!
Best W to all who sail in or by UT
Sheff - Glad you survived. xx
ReplyDeleteHappy Easter break.
That's me for now, dog walking needed.
Congratulations, Sheff, have a sit down and a nice cup of tea!
ReplyDelete."..up four flights of stairs!.." - a room with a view.
ReplyDeleteI ought to have added that at sometime or other just about everybody who posts here has caused me to stop and think,.................... but then as my dear comrade Hank might have said ...that's the problem with the feeble minded.
ReplyDeleteWe should enjoy it whilst we can. I like UT.
Continuing from Scherfig's little rant after he knew I had gone to bed...
ReplyDeleteSod off, Scherf. You know nothing about me, my background, what I do, how I got here or anything else.
You make assumptions, based on my profession, that I went to a certain school or certain university, live a certain lifestyle and don't have the same moral committment as you do.
Tough fucking shit if your projection of what you think I am isn't up to scratch in your eyes. I couldn't give a toss what you think of me, frankly. And I certainly don't need your approval to post here, ta very much.
I will be ignoring you from now on.
Jog on.
Re Tony Judt, there was a cracking essay by him in the Guardian the other week, which I'd thoroughly recommend as food for thought. You can nit-pick about it and see some flaws (like, er, what to do...) but the general tenor is spot-on.
ReplyDeleteRe: UT.
FWIW, and this applies to the wider web and placing opinions online: all well and good, but nothing like as significant as real world action. Online stuff can assist in real life action, but should never displace it. Where people fall out on here, I think much of it relies on assumptions on what others do or don't do in the real world. I know what I do, and having met MF reckon he's a real-world do-er, one who walks the walk. I haven't met anyone else on here, so I don't know if their online personae, prose styles and mannerisms map on to their actual activity or activism.I might guess, but I might well guess wrong. I like UT (I really do), but if that was the sum total of my trying to change things,I'd either have been suckered into a neutered proxy for real protest or I'd feel a phony somewhere inside.What I can't do is blanket assume is that others are suckers or frauds: I can suspect it,perhaps, but that'd be on little evidence bar some kind of exegesis of online posts made at all times of day (in varying emotional and/or intoxicated states).
In other words, I hope (and actually believe in the overwhelming majority of cases) folk here match their reality to their rhetoric, but shit, this is online, so I can't know that.There isn't an answer.
Sheff - glad the move went well!
ReplyDeleteInteresting that you post a piece by Tony Judt - just been looking at Anthony Lerman's blog and he quotes him on there too.
Very well put, Deano, as always.
ReplyDeletealasdair
ReplyDeleteall well and good, but nothing like as significant as real world action. Online stuff can assist in real life action, but should never displace it. Where people fall out on here, I think much of it relies on assumptions on what others do or don't do in the real world.
Precisely.
There may be any number of reasons why people don't want to reveal details about what they do in their lives, either because they don't want to be seen to be boasting about it, or else because they don't want their online personas to be "outed" by someone being able to put two and two together from a few judicious google searches.
People project - they always have done, and they always will. And because they only see a facade rather than the real person a lot of the time, all the more of a blank space to project upon.
Ah - the Mark Seddon piece is back up, Alasdair!
ReplyDeleteI guess they decided it was the wrong time of day to publish it or something.
Leni from last night
ReplyDeleteThe problems are definable - solutions not so simple - the definition of the revolution are very vague - the desired end result even less clear. How many projected, hoped for ends are there?
Some spend quite a lot of time working away in a small corner - often isolated. The broader picture is not always discernible.
Easy enough to say " There is something rotten in the state ... " Then what ?
The problem seems to be, as I have said before, what do you want to make and what tools are you using to do so?
Strangely, at about the same time that Hazel Blears was telling bloggers that the opinions of a cabinet minister always trumped the idiocies of stupid bloggers, she was also saying that politicians have an idea of what they want to achieve, but those who carp and criticise only know what they want to undermine and ridicule.
There is something in all this and we need to think about what we want.
To think of blogs as tools to change the world is a bit like the octogenarian vicar who has just had his ancient but trusty Morris Minor estate car serviced and the wooden frame polished. He notices that it seems to be going a bit better and thinks that a drag-racer is really just a car after all, so enters himself and his old jalopy into a drag-race.
It ends in tears as his beautiful machine smashes into the armoured railings and he is taken to hospital.
Wrong tool, wrong job and wrong thinking.
Blogging and commenting may change things at a minute level and at glacial slowness, but they have to compete with those who hold actual power and can change events while we are all still sticking our tongues between our lips and wondering how to knock together a knock-out line.
The difference between those who wield power and those who don't is simply how much thought is applied to actions.
Tony Blair took us to war because he thought the voices in his head had told him to and, in his idiot thoughtlessness, could see no reason not to obey.
For the rest of us, we would be crippled and hobbled by our nagging, niggling brains, telling us to think and wonder and ponder and consider. We would still be chewing our lips and picking our noses.
So, if you want to achieve something big, stop talking about it, stop thinking, stop questioning and simply do.
The problem is, this recklessness, this blithe empty-headed unconcern is not us.
We are chained to reason and conscience and we are in some six-legged egg-and-spoon race, where we forever stumble and fall.
We are not made for the screams and roars and the stink of fuel and oil in the pits.
We are the ones who wobble from home to work on our dilapidated bicycles like an Agatha Christie sleuth and are the paradigm of stasis and security and reliability beloved of politicians who dream of warm beer and cricket and perpetual mild summer evenings.
The revolution will not be televised and we will not have parts.
If it happens, we will be onlookers and will write about it afterwards on blogs.
BB - interesting link posted to possible BNP intra-fash handbags - after reading the audit report / staffing explanation on the last submitted set of BNP accounts (audit speak for 'fuck this shower, they're hopeless'), was particularly interested in the reference to an investigation into:
ReplyDelete"Alleged financial irregularities and ‘scamming’ concerning the procurement of print, especially large election print run, leaflets and regular publications including Identity magazine"
and "The entire matter is therefore now in the hands of the police."
2009 accounts still haven't been submitted. Imagine there are interesting audit 'clearance' meetings taking place at the moment...
I wonder if this is all obfuscation and trying to shift the blame, Phillipa, before it all explodes. Still - sitting back with popcorn now.
ReplyDeleteAtomboy
Good post. Not necessarily sure about the use of the word "we" so much, though, especially here:
"The revolution will not be televised and we will not have parts.
If it happens, we will be onlookers and will write about it afterwards on blogs."
As alasdair said earlier, we don't know what people actually do as opposed to what they talk about.
They certainly seem to have blamed all the accounting cock-ups on replaced staff - even though some of them seem to relate to periods aftertheir replacement...
ReplyDeleteI think it was Griffin's mother - or was it his mother-in-law? - who used to do the accounts...
ReplyDeleteGood morning. Things appear to have been a little heavy here again in my absence. I have already commented on three pieces on CiF, albeit two in jest (told Alexander Chancellor to give me his column as he had no idea what to do with it)
ReplyDeleteI haven't visited for a while because after the black dog began to lift (4 months to the day) I got some virus. I am somewhere being being and nothingness having exhausted myself living the examined life but hey ho.
Chin up folks, the spring is here, the lambs are in the fields. I'm running treasure hunts and wilow bunny making!
ReplyDeleteWell done on the move Sheff, I'd suggest that as u unpack continue the pruning of posetions, if you haven't used it/ wore it for a few years, bin it now?
Good to hear from you, MsR - and hope you feel better soon.
ReplyDeleteMsR - ouch, that sounds nasty. Is it ebbing?
ReplyDeleteBeautifulBurnout
ReplyDeleteYes, I take your point but can assure you there is nothing implied by the use of "we" beyond a mixture of old-fashioned formalism and hatred of the cult of "me".
It probably stems from the days of the old Acme Science Kit and writing up findings: "We were then able to observe..." etc, in which "we" meant simply "me" - and my imaginary friend.
Happy Flying Pizza Monster Day and Happy Birthday to Deano from yesterday - and to anyone else who knows me, as they used to say when given a fleeting chance of glittering stardom at the end of a wireless phone-in.
Happy Chocolate Egg and Hot Cross Bun day to you too, AB.
ReplyDeleteAs my dad always says on Good Friday: "Poor Jesus - what a way to spend Easter". :o)
Interesting/stimulating posts Alisdair/Atomboy.
ReplyDelete"The revolution will not be televised and we will not have parts."
I think it will be televised and we will all have a choice of whether to pour petrol or water on it.
On the broader issue of what difference do we make - well I guess it all depends on what you think grows or can grow from small acorns.
It's the same establishment/self interests that Gandhi and others have had to deal with. What always gives them the shits is the notion that the natives are talking amongst themselves. If UT has no other purpose it can give employment to their worried ears.
What we can be sure of is that the notion of "we the people" is essentially a collectivist viewpoint. And that must involve a meeting of the minds and a consensus. I think that the internet and the likes of UT can/will contribute to that.
Not sure how or when it will kick off. But I very much like the intergenerational/inter-gender/international character of this UT place - it helps me 'sense' the depth and spread of the despair
Good to see you again MsR - I was hoping that we had not lost you. Go gently and easily young miss and learn that you can catch some wild things by bathing alone..
Atomboy - I like the use of the word 'we', it's the start of a collectivist perspective.
ReplyDeleteAt worst it helps one from being/feeling lonely.
I always wanted UT to be a kinda Acme Academy for the learning of essential civilised life/political/economic skills I think it is developing well in that regard. I keeping learning new things here.
......learning/distribution of essential civilised life...
ReplyDeletethe best and strongest 'we' comes from a shared understanding
Hello everyone, it's me again, anthropology girl - apologies for the radio silence, but I thought I'd just drop in to mention that I've at long last got that promised essay on online interaction and anthropology up on UT2. Alisdair, I enjoyed your comment about internet vs 'real world' above, and it hits the nail of my topic right on the head. So if anyone is interested in a little chat on that subject, do have a read and I'd love to hear any and all thoughts! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteAfternoon everyone
ReplyDeleteFeeling like shit as bastard sinusitus is playing
up again.Hardly life threatening but a pain in the
butt nevertheless.Have thus far resisted GP,s offer
of a referral to ENT as i detest hospitals with a
passion.Worse thing about this condition is that
you can,t enjoy a bottle of good red as alcohol
makes it a zillion times worse.Intend to get on
top of it though.Don,t want my epitath to read-
'He was a martyr to his sinuses!
Epitath certainly wouldn,t say i suffered in silence
as i bitterly resent feeling unwell.As the woman i
live with will testify.
Anyway hope all is well with the 'Untrusties'.Intend
to do sweet FA today and i advise everyone else to do
the same.
Good piece Emily I personally liked the tone.
ReplyDeleteGive it time I'm sure that folk will find your piece stimulating.
Thank you deano30! That's very kind. I hope it wasn't too disjointed... my thoughts aren't entirely organised yet, but I do hope it's of some interest.
ReplyDeleteCould someone please explain to me what UT2 is and
ReplyDeletehow is it accessed?Thanks
@dEANO30-agree with your point that UT is what people
make it.
Hey Paul
ReplyDeleteIf you look up at the top right-hand-side, you will see a link to Untrusted, Too.
Emily's piece is at the top of that page.
@Cheers BB
ReplyDeletebtw i still luvya!
Paul if you look at the top right corner of this blog you will currently see
ReplyDeleteUseful Work and Useless Toil - William Morris
Click on it and it will take you to UT2 our sister blog. Put there by Montana for anyone to post a longer more serious piece/article on.
Tomorrow when UT is refreshed it will have the title of Emily's new piece as the link. That will stay until someone else posts a new piece.
Hope that helps. Sorry to read of your woe hope its temp.
I see that the 'link' mechanism to UT2 has now changed to the title of Emily's piece.
ReplyDeleteHello All
ReplyDeleteJust checking in before I disappear for a few hours.
Atomboy
You are right - this was my point. We can do our own small bit as and how . This does not prevent our posting as well. Talking to each other here won't change the world but can be supportive and help clarify ideas.
Anne - William Morris - an interesting guy. He and many writers and thinkers of the early 20th century were writing about conditions - economic and political - very different to those of today. Morris was part of the back to the land movement of the time - this morphed now into the green movement - another big split in Left thinking - an approach which is confrontational and absorbs many activists. Lots of crossover movements.
Lots to think about and discuss - hopefully without too much acrimony.
Hi deano, points taken. You're a decent man. I would just point out that Anne recently took the trouble to put up a post on UT2 and share some thoughts about a real socialist, William Morris. Two people bothered to comment - myself and Duke. Now who would have thought that a blog crammed to the gills with self-proclaimed lefties would find Anne's post so uninteresting that they they couldn't even be bothered to acknowledge to her that they had read it? That seems indicative of how this blog is going - serious debate unwelcome, so why bother even trying? Nothing wrong with that of course, Facebook-type twitterings also have their place. However I don't think that I have much to offer this place, and it doesn't have much to offer me any more, so best of luck to all. It's been a lot of fun.
ReplyDelete@Thanks Deano
ReplyDelete@scherfig
ReplyDeleteI think the Left is in turmoil at the moment.I can,t
speak for anyone else but i have problems with
deciding where the LEFT should be positioning
itself with certain issues.Given that talk is cheap
and that the Left needs to make itself attractive
to the electorate without 'selling out'-which is
what New Labour did in this country.
We don,t know each other and you,re are well within
your rights to tell me to mind my own business.But
given the European-wide shift to the Right and
the need for the Left to sort itself out people
with strong convictions are desperately needed.Can i urge you therefore not to close the door on UT
entirely.We may not agree on some issues but i
welcome the input from as diverse a group of people
as possible.
Scherf I think the reason for the lack of comments was at least in part my fault. I didn't put a link in so it didn't appear on this page as the 'lasted from UTtoo'.
ReplyDeleteThanks to whoever did this for me! Leni read the essay and judge for yourself if the essay a good argument for socialism or not.
Morris was certainly saying that even trades like carpentry and stonemasonary were more enjoyable in earlier times because capitalism tends to destroy creativity in the name of profit. Robert Tressell’s “Ragged Trousered Philanthropists” expressed this very clearly too.
If I have a criticism of Morris its the lack of priority given to economics. I have some sympathy with this as I find it difficult myself!
Marx said:
"Philosophers have interpreted the world in various ways, the point however is to change it"
To change it we have to understand it.
Fuck - I just posted a bit about my admiration for you anne and it went off into the ether.
ReplyDeleteBastard. I don't have time to rewrite it now.
But just in case you were feeling unloved you knows you are a favourite of mine. I won't have any old biddy in my Furnivall boat and as you know you have a seat.
I like Morris so much that only a few days ago I posted that I have half a roll of one of his wallpaper designs for my van .......if only I could stop being idle and hang it.
xx.
Don't stay away too long Scherfig
The important bit of economics that you already know is................. them bastards have got our share and they ain't going to give it up without being introduced to some electricity and/or a rope
ReplyDeleteThe Adam Smith 'model' of the free market is predicated inter alia on 'free and perfect knowledge' and riddled with the old ceterus paribus (other things being equal) nonsense.
Both (and other) assumptions are manifestly and patently absurd nonsense and the more so in the contemporary world..
Paul:
ReplyDeleteThe Left is in turmoil, and it is all of its own making. Playright David Edgar wrote a long essay in the Guardian lamenting the ‘defection’ of former leftwing writers to the Right. But Edgar’s Left is not a group to which any decent person would wish to belong.
1. Who would want to defect from the kind of left that after September 11, 2001, could not bring itself to condemn this in plain speech as a crime of mass murder, but was full of the language of ‘yes but’ and ‘blowback’ and ‘comeuppance’? Why, if I belonged to such a left, I would want to defect from it.
2. Who would want to defect from a left that could see no reason at all in favour of getting rid of a genocidal tyrant like Saddam Hussein, and that in opposing the Iraq war therefore treated support for the war from within the left as precisely renegacy? Me – that’s a left I’d have no desire to be part of.
3. And who could dream of defecting from a left that treated the wanton targeting of Iraqi civilians in opposing the US-led occupation as the understandable tactics of a resistance one could not be too choosy about and should offer one’s support? Yup, sign me right up. That’s a left I’d want to defect from if I belonged to it.
4. Who ever would defect from a left that responded to the July 7 bombings in London with more apologias for the killers of the type that had followed 9/11? Include me in. I defect. I defect.
5. Could there be, anywhere, defectors from a left that, in a world by no means short of tyrannies, torturers, rank abusers of human rights, widespread poverty, extensive hunger, episodes of genocide, was obsessed above all with two countries, both of them democracies, as the source of all political evil – the United States and Israel? Just watch my dust: it’s a left to be left.
6. Who could even think of defecting from the kind of left that still speaks in terms of ‘defection’ and ‘apostasy’, as if it possessed a truth given to it from some higher source and had the power to excommunicate? Now, that’s a left I would find my way out of if I had to.
7. But then who would want to defect from a left which saw itself as uniting certain universal values, values like freedom and equality and justice, with the interests and struggles of the unfree, the wronged and the oppressed everywhere? Well, I don’t know who would want to defect from this kind of left. But when I ran into them I’d try to persuade them not to defect. I’d tell them that there’s a left worth belonging to, and that those who belong to it should limit their defections to parting company with the lefts that discredit its values and its better traditions.
Fuck knows what Morris would have thought if he had ever read Frederick Winslow Taylor the founding misguided father of scientific management (work study etc).
ReplyDeleteThat guy accelerated the destruction of meaningful work and made it soulless for so many.
'Have a nice day' is the most extreme example of his legacy.....and he from a nice Quaker family too.............mind you so was Dick Millhouse Nixon
I am to be condemned by a mix of the carelees use of language by some on the left and hijacking of it by some on the right...........erm I think not.
ReplyDeleteHave a nice day Peter.
"... not a group to which any decent person would wish to belong...
ReplyDeleteI didn't read the piece but there is nothing like the indignant right for knowing what is decent and indecent. A strand of thinking that can quickly lead to a zyklon b shower to rid one's self of the dross.
Give over, deano. Though I grant you the word decent is misplaced.
ReplyDeleteI should have used 'sensible' or 'right-thinking', though the latter would likely have been scoffed at...
'sensible' or 'right-thinking', though the latter would likely have been scoffed at...
ReplyDelete'far right-thinking' surely Peter?
Not at all Peter, 'right thinking' is an honest label and I wouldn't scoff at that.
ReplyDeleteSensible? - Not so sure about that. I have a family and I think their future well being and happiness and security is seriously undermined by allegedly sensible right thinking folk.
Seemed to me as a lad that they were in hock to the likes of Gerald Grosvenor(and his lackies and subservients) the day they were born and things have only got worse.
I must be away to do the shopping.
Irony that Scherfig bemoans that you might have been made to feel unwelcome here at UT (last night) and then he fucks off and leaves us to your wild imaginations.
Ah, that's better, turminderxuss. I feel suitably clothed, now.
ReplyDeleteAnd I should warn you: I'm wearing my kevlar...
PeterB - ave.
ReplyDeleteDidn't read the Edgar piece but I think I know the kind of left you're talking about. Can't say I've come across much of that kind of thinking on CIF, for example, except as accusations hurled 'leftwards'. Still, bindel / iddlebid exist, so I suppose it must be out there somewhere.
Surely it's possible to condemn murder as such while simultaneously examining how it came to pass, what could be done to avoid a repeat, whether that's 9/11, 7/7, or the killing of James Bulger?
Surely possible to recognis that Saddam Hussein was a mass-murdering git while simultaneously not thinking that that alone was sufficient for war, when there's a lot of MMGs out there, and we were sold a lie as to the reasons for it?
Surely possible to look at the US and other democracies and call them when they fail to live up to their own ideals, and also to condemn dictatorship elsewhere?
Binary works for computers. People are more complicated.
The 'left' you castigate in your earlier points is recognised as a strand, rather than a monolith, in the last point. And I really think that's the case - and, unlike the radfem position that poisons the tank for regular feminism and people geting along in general, which is regularly displayed by a small number, I don't know if that strand of the left is regularly displayed. Or even exists.
I haven't 'defected' from anything - far as I'm concerned, a credible party of the left has defected from society - there seems to be no political organisation "uniting certain universal values, values like freedom and equality and justice, with the interests and struggles of the unfree, the wronged and the oppressed everywhere" - but those ideals are still vibrant in many people. It just doesn't have leadership at the minute...
Right. Must get up. It's nearly time to go to the pub.
Glad to see level of debate is fine as ever.
ReplyDelete@Philippa: it is abating but frankly as the French say j'en ai marre.
@Deano. There are offers on the table that may ensure I need not bathe alone but Ms R is somewhat emotionally cautious at present.
Scherfig,
ReplyDeletequickly to say that I will get back to you on the reference Orwell made about William Morris. The Orwell book I got the Morris analysis from is somewhere in the North Sea being shipped over. I'll let you know once I get a hold of it.
PeterBracken.
I don't think I've ever said hello to you here. Hello and although I hardly agree with anything you say, I'm delighted you're posting here.
I don't have any time for a riposte viz your post above unfortunately. I'm off to to the local brown bar to drink a shitload of lentebok.
Happy Easter weekend all.
deano - thanks for the heads-up on yesterday's exchanges, I hadn't seen them.
ReplyDeleteI'm grateful for scherfig's concern, but he(?) worries unduly. Authentic left-wingers like me occupy an odd space, one which (as I told Henry Porter only yesterday) celebrates the silent, ineluctable transfer of power from authority to values, whilst the Right and (deluded) Left still maintain a redundant fight in their mock Maginot trenches.
Philippa: you mention 'radfem' and I was so close to posting a hugely satisfying rant in response to Bidisha's diatribe, but pulled it at the death (500 words deleted) because the Guardian would never have swallowed it.
I don't think you're right to describe my position as a binary argument. I don't question the sense of your appeal to complexity, but I question your appeal to an understanding that too often morphs into apologia.
And if you're in France, you'll struggle to find a decent pub.
13thDukeofWybourne: thank you for the welcome; have one on me, as it were.
I dunno if a leftist critique of say, the war, constituted an apologia for Saddam. That particular accusation was thrown around a bit on the threads, but was roundly batted away. There is a 'binary' aspect to a lot of criticism of the left, in that saying that trying a 10-year-old in an adult court might not be the best approach available means that you, of course, murder small children on a regular basis. It is possible to condemn and seek to understand, at the same time.
ReplyDeleteIt's kind of like... you were in the army, yes? well, would it not annoy you immensely if somebody came out with a shrill 'babykillers!'. Or drew parallels between what happened at abu ghraib and the rest of the allied forces? It's either a total strawman, or an extrapolation from a tiny number of people to a hell of a lot of people. you see the same with iddelbid, you see the same with people saying that 'the left' want open borders, when someone ventures that Yarls Wood might not be a very nice place.
All points of view get this kind of crap, but it does seem more prevalent in certain debates.
Lyndie England is to the armed forces what iddelbid is to feminism, is what george galloway is to the left.
pommes mauvaises, the lot of 'em.
I never said a decent pub. Manhattan low-cost cafe, as ever, I would imagine.
And I greatly enjoyed posting my hugely satisfying rant on that particular thread. Sometimes, you just have to rant. ahem.
Peter...'Authentic left-wingers like me'
ReplyDeleteWhich squares with 'nu labour advisor'how?
They didn't take your advice, or just did the opposite?
I'll check in l8r folks, got to put the shop to bed, 56 treasure hunts tday!
Yes I knew it - low-cost it is.
ReplyDeleteenjoy your evenings, peeps.
will no doubt be posting random links and epically mis-spelling things later...
PhilippaB:
ReplyDelete"I dunno if a leftist critique of say, the war, constituted an apologia for Saddam."
Sure, it needn't necessarily. Indeed, in most cases it doesn't. The malaise with the Left is that it can and often does.
turminderxuss: advisor on communications, not policy save the armed forces, given my background - where, I have the immodesty to claim, I was very progressive, being a forthright champion of the extension of teeth arm roles to women.
@scherfig - I feel your pain. Your problem, like mine, is that you take things too seriously. And we share the same birthday...maybe there is something to be said for astrology after all.
ReplyDeleteWhat I've never been able to fathom about the spat we had the other week is why you were so desperate to chase me off this site, given that we were so close in our thinking.
(All that crap about revealing personal details was paranoid bollocks, self-serving self-righteousness masquerading as taking the moral high ground.)
You said last night that, maybe, ya know, when all's said and done, maybe I did actually serve a purpose on here. Well, of course I did. I was the bouncer, the guy who checked the credentials of the newcomers, the one who tried to keep this place true to its original principles.
I was the guy who kept on reminding others on here that there was a point to being Untrusted, and that you couldn't reconcile being untrusted with being one of the Waddya gang, airkissing Jess and Bella and the rest of the privileged and complacent middle class tossers.
You referred last night to the recent "unpleasantness". It's a very telling, revealing word. We all want to be seen as pleasant, nice. The problem is that it's difficult to be pleasant and nice at the same time as you're genuinely angry about things.
You were one of the originals on here, scherf, as was I. There was a point to it when Montana set it up, but it's lost its way. We haven't changed. The Untrusted has. So you're right to walk away. Don't mourn it, don't feel bad.
Do what I do. Give the daily chit chat a miss, don't feel left out if you haven't been listening to the Archers, and just lob the occasional grenade.
If nothing else, it generates a few comments. There's nothing more likely to get middle class liberals angry than accusing them of being middle class liberals.
This is among my favourite political insights. Sydney Hook addressed a confrence of social democrats in 1976 with these words:
ReplyDelete"The differences between conservatives and liberals, when the terms are reasonably construed, are family differences among adherents of a free society, defined as one whose institutions ultimately rest on the consent of those affected by their operations. When the security of a free society is threatened by aggressive totalitarianism, these differences must be temporarily subordinated to the common interest in its survival. There is always the danger that in the ever-present and sometimes heated struggles between liberals and conservatives, each group may come to fear the other more than their common enemy. If and when that happens, the darkness of what Marx called 'Asiatic despotism', in modern dress to be sure, will descend upon the world."
You might be right, Hank, you often are about things, (with some spectacular misses, of course) but it don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. I don't really think that I could be bothered lobbing grenades in here - it would only make the chandeliers tremble a little bit, and the dinner party would continue. I'll leave the lobbing in the capable hands of Peter Bracken (and yourself). Deano can sweep up the dislodged dust and BB can explain why that should really have been an immigrant's job. When all's said and done, it comes down to common sense and conscience, and I'm no longer comfortable here. And that's what it's all about here, isn't it? Feeling comfortable, not getting challenged, being appreciated, being accepted, feeling good about yourself. Not for me, I'm afraid. Much too pedestrian.
ReplyDeleteHope you're doing OK. Take care.
btw, one final word. My disgust with the reaction both here and on Cif to Bindel's 're-branding' seems to be borne out by Seaton's comment yesterday. I asked (somewhat rhetorically) if we were fucking idiots, and the answer appears to be yes:
But picking up on DamnWymz's point above about Cath Elliott, I suppose I'm also watching Julie Bindel's transformation from being seen as soem sort of rad fem hatchet woman to now feted as Cif treasure for her recent posts around here, and wishing Bidisha would do some of the same.
I'm working on it...
Cif treasure, eh? Because she writes a few sentences BTL, and all the Ciffers chuckle. Well, you gotta laugh, doncha? :o)
And there you go, scherf, PeterBracken's proved my point. Meaningless twaddle which prattles on about freedom and has nothing to say about wealth or equality.
ReplyDeleteLike all conservatives, most liberals and too many advisors to NuLabour, Bracken measures freedom in market terms.
Freedom is a privilege, paid for by those who can afford it. And denied to those who stand up to the wealth generators.
Which is why Bracken and his chums spit on the right to strike.
Pwiveleged public schoolboys who spout off about freedom as long as it serves their purpose.
I just looked back at the first thread on the UT - you know, the one that went on for two weeks and was so full of deep, probing political insight from all you intellectual giants.
ReplyDeleteI was really quite surprised to see that actually it was exactly the same then as it is today.
A rant or two about Bidi, a few serious points made, a good few more light-hearted posts, some general whingeing about modding, and random banter.
Whatever some people have chosen to conflate it into in their minds doesn't actually reflect reality. Some of you might have wanted it to be a politics-only blog (although that didn't stop you talking about the football when it suited you), and we have had this argument a dozen times now, which is why UT2 was set up, so that all you intellectual giants could leave us small-minded chattering people to witter amongst ourselves so you could have your own serious articles.
But the UT - and remember it wasn't even called that to begin with - has never been what you imagine it to be.
Check it out for yourselves.
15 February 2009
A place for Ciffers to keep things going
Martillo could probably do a better job of this, but I thought I'd create a place for Ciffers to keep alive threads that have been cruelly cut short by the Guardian mods. Cluing each other in on what it was we've said that mods have deleted is acceptable, too.
On a purely selfish level, I'm hoping this will alleviate some of my time zone frustrations. I'm new to this blogging stuff, so the more technically savvy will have to exercise some patience with me as I learn how to take care of this thing.
And I am not going to stop posting on here just because some people want to take pot-shots at me because I am not up to their intellectual proletarian standards. That is their problem, not mine.
Now I am off for the evening. By all means keep feeding your delusions if that is what rocks your boats. But don't expect everyone else to genuflect, crying "I'm not worthy!" and buying into your bollocks.
Nothing has changed.
Ah well - I will leave you to your ad homs now, you two.
"...why it should have been an immigrant's job".
Yeah, very clever. You must be so proud of yourself.
@scherf - you've got my number, email address etc. Keep in touch.
ReplyDelete@BB - I've always had a soft spot for you and admired the work you do both in real life, and on here, in bashing the fash. But you are very precious. You don't like criticism at all. You take everything so very personally.
Your rant at 17.57 above is all well and good, but like a true barrister, you've chosen to ignore the argument which undermines your own case.
That argument, as recited repeatedly, is that people cannot genuinely have feet in two camps. They can't be friends with Jess, and friends with me, MF, scherf etc.
There comes a point at which you actually have to make a stand, take a decision, even if that might chip away at your popularity.
You aren't really "Untrusted", BB. Just like kiz, Jay and Bru weren't really untrusted. You all just want to be liked, you'd rather gossip than debate.
Frankly, I was gobsmacked at Montana's attack on me the other week. I thought she was out of order. But it was beneficial for me because I realised what I'd kinda known for a long time - that this site is full of superficial people who crave approval, are all very "nice" and "pleasant" when everyone's "nice" and "pleasant" to them, but are thin-skinned, small-minded and spiteful if their ideas or values are challenged.
I'm not so proud of myself, btw, but I'm not kidding myself either.
Ouch, BB! I take your point - any view which doesn't correspond with your own must be 'bollocks'. And what's wrong with football, btw? I seem to remember you waxing lyrical on occasion about rugby and how really tough the guys who played it were.
ReplyDeleteBut seriously, your point about what UT has been, is now, and should be is apposite. But nobody has ever claimed that it should be politics only. The banter has always been a big part of it. (I think on Cif they call your argument a straw man, though). I just don't think UT should be Facebook, and when people make the effort to post on UT2 and nobody responds, then that's a shame. Although I note that Emily's post has prompted 8 times as many responses as Anne's in a fraction of the time. Why should that be? Oh yeah, It gives us all a chance to talk about ME! Socialism is sooo yesterday - especially that Morris guy. And his wallpaper is really crap.
So people vote with their feet. Gegen's popped in, a valuable addition. AllyF will grace us with his presence next time he's in pre-mod. PeterB will undoubtedly get bored and disappear. You get the blog you deserve. Enjoy.
@Hank
ReplyDeleteAfter i read your post last night i realized you
may well be a poster-under a different name-who i
used to enjoy reading on CIF.And i,m not saying
that simply to flatter you cos that aint my style.
What seperated you from many other posters was not
just the consistancy and fluency of your posts
but also the passion that clearly was the driving
force behind them.Plus you had a sense of humour!
What,s happened Hank cos right now you are behaving
like a kid whose throwing his toys out of his pram.?
What useful purpose is there in lashing out at
people on UT.The Left is in a mess and maybe the
uneasy coalition that historically existed on
the Left has broken down for good.Who knows?But it
aint gonna be resolved overnight on UT .
There are shitloads of things that could be debated
and will be hopefully.And i genuinely hope you will
be part of that.Because if you are the person i
remember from CIF then i genuinely have a lot of
respect for your views-even though i may not
always agree.
psI speak as someone whose anger also does get the
better of him at times so can be just as guily of
throwing his toys out of the pram!!
"You get the blog you deserve. Enjoy."
ReplyDelete"There's nothing more likely to get middle class liberals angry than accusing them of being middle class liberals."
Choose either for the new UT slogan, Montana.
Alternatively, go for
"The Untrusted - a nice place for nice people"
And then sell the site to those nice people at the Guardian.
@Hank
ReplyDeleteSorry mate now you really are behaving like a pratt.
Why don,t you go and set up a blog of your own
and call it something like AngerFest-all heat and
no light!.Forget my earlier post to you.Clearly got
you mixed up with someone else.
@Paul - read what I said earlier about having feet in both camps. I despise Cif and its modding policy. The UT, regardless of what BB might think, was set up as a place for those whose voices were silenced on Cif because they didn't comply with the NuLab agenda.
ReplyDeleteThe Left is in a mess thanks to the voices who dominate Cif, those above the line, and those below it as well, and some of them are on here. The well-meaning liberal hypocrites with big pads in Surrey who like to think of themselves as wadicals as long as it won't cost them anything. The well-meaning liberals who believe in equal opps and have yet to grasp that that policy has created a new group of middle class couples with two incomes, two cars, nice houses, and a working class in their wake who have neither income, car or house.
And all these well-meaning liberals kid themselves that they're not part of the problem, and that the working classes who have neither jobs, cars, mortgages or posting rights on Cif deserve everything they get because they're untermenschen, and that the destruction of manufacturing industry and the unions was a good thing really, because they're ok.
You know what should trouble you, Paul? It's not the fact that I get a bit angry and throw my toys out of the pram.
It's the fact that I stand out because I do get angry.
The regulars on here don't like "angry". They like "nice" and "pleasant".
That should give you something to ponder, Paul.
That's what I love about CiF and the UT - the sound of silence when the liberal idiots get stripped naked.
ReplyDeleteI'm away for the weekend, folks, so feel free to slag me off.
@PeterBracken
ReplyDeleteJust picked up on your earlier post.Haven,t had a
chance to read all the follow up posts.However if i
read her correctly i tend to agree with PhillipaB.
At best the Left was always a coalition of different
strands and this coalition has largely broken down.
New Labour are nothing more than an ante-chamber of
the Tories and the Lib-Dems themselves don,t seem
to believe they will ever be more than a dumping ground for the protest vote.Or as the ones
holding the balance of power in a hung parliament.
In my opinion what is left of the Left can be divided
into two groups.Those like me who want a neo social
democratic model to evolve and those who are more
in favour of a neo marxist model.The trouble is that
both groups are flaying in the dark and are rudderless as well as leaderless.
Those like me wanting a neo social democratic model
tend to believe that capitalism is in trouble but
not terminally.Whilst those opting for the neo marxist
model tend to think that capitalism is a spent force
and that it is only a matter of time before alternatives will become a necessity.
There are obviously a million and one debates that need to be had about this.And hopefully UT will
provide a forum for them to take place.
All the best!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"And then mum would say it was time for lunch and everyone stopped shouting and accepted there were differences that might not be resolved and had some food. And maybe if we were in person that might happen."
ReplyDeleteThat encapsulates my current feelings about politics perfectly, MsR. How can we know what we know yet continue to live our lives? I spent many years questioning everything I (and others) did and eventually realised I'd lost the pleasure of simply being. Now I'm a kind of cheerful cynic. Maybe I'll find a balance some day.
Evenin' all. I see Streisand and Cher are doing another fairwell tour. Any choons tonight? If not, I'll try and rummage through the box at the bottom of my wardrobe to find an opinion about something...
ReplyDelete@Hank
ReplyDeleteIf you read this forget what i said earlier.I don,t know you so there was nothing personal involved.I don,t know whether we share the same ideological view
of the world as i,ve never really 'spoken' to you.
I think everyone on the Left -irrespective of which
strand they embrace-feels a sense of frustration
and powerlessness at the moment.Doesn,t help if we
lash out at each other.
No hard feelings eh!
"The well-meaning liberals who believe in equal opps and have yet to grasp that that policy has created a new group of middle class couples with two incomes, two cars, nice houses, and a working class in their wake who have neither income, car or house."
ReplyDeleteI know for a fact that my working class credentials are as good as any's on this board, which is why I don't feel the need to wear them.
I also know that this sentiment of HankScorpio's is as trite as the bogus sociology that he uses to sustain it.
Inside liberals like Hank there's a Stalinist trying to get out.
"as for questioning the purpose of the UT..."
ReplyDeleteYeh, sorry about that, MsR. As should be clear, the purpose of the UT is to provide a chat room for Cif regulars to bitch about Cif regulars.
There was actually a point to this site when it was first set up. It served a purpose. Montana knows it, as does BB. That might explain why they've been so petty and spiteful recently in trying to justify the vacuous gossip site it's become.
This site, and Montana is sure to correct me if I'm wrong, or more to the point if I'm right but Montana's since changed her mind, was set up for those who disagreed with the party line on Cif.
Montana's a socialist, as am I, as is scherfig, monkeyfish, olching, annetan and a few others who gathered on this site.
It's not a site for socialists anymore. It's a site for waddya-wannabees.
I've no interest in snide responses from those who don't understand the thrust of this argument.
I'd be interested to know what martillo, scherfig, olching or Montana thinks though.
Hank
ReplyDelete"Frankly, I was gobsmacked at Montana's attack on me the other week. I thought she was out of order."
Well, did it not make some impact on you that someone who has defended you against everyone, when you had pissed off everyone, finally told you that you were too much? Did that not tell you that maybe you were not being 'not nice' but downright nasty?
No, apparently - because you "realised what I'd kinda known for a long time - that this site is full of superficial people who crave approval, are all very "nice" and "pleasant" when everyone's "nice" and "pleasant" to them, but are thin-skinned, small-minded and spiteful if their ideas or values are challenged"
Whereas you aren'tthin-skinned, small-minded and spiteful? You are. You're so unpleasant to everybody, even those trying, desperately, to agree with you.
"there's nothing more likely to get middle class liberals angry than accusing them of being middle class liberals."
Fine. I'm a middle-class liberal, whatever the hell that is. What are you, Hank? What do you do? What do you think? Other than being 'angry'. Good for you. Be angry. Lots of us are angry, it doesn't mark you out. It's just that your anger seems pointless. I really don't see what you want. What do you want?
"...working class credentials..."
ReplyDeleteYeh, course they are, Bwacken. That's why you've got a photoshopped avatar and are working as a policy adviser to New Labour.
As for being a liberal, I've never claimed to be one, as should be clear from my earlier response.
@Hank
ReplyDeleteHow do you define a socialist?And what do you propose
UT should be?A forum for like-minded people to
get angry and have a good 'bitch' to the exclusion
of everyone else.That anyone who has the audacity
to disagree gets ostracised or marked with the sign
of the beast perhaps?
When i first joined CIF i got into an 'early hours'
spat with a group who like you were permanently angry and forever subjecting people who disagreed with them to abuse.Yet when i confronted them about their policy
agenda they had nothing to say.It was all heat and
no light.
You tell me what your vision is and then we might
get a debate going.Unless of course you have no
interst in anyone elses opinion but your own.
"There's nothing more likely to get middle class liberals angry than accusing them of being middle class liberals."
ReplyDeleteTrue, innit? BB and Phillipa are both angrier than they've ever been, even angrier than they were when the Tories decided to take the first born child of every working class family to boil them down into soup. Even angrier than they were when NuLab raised the VAT rate on caviar and Polish cleaners.
You did make me chuckle, heyhabib, but then that's what you're best at - attempting to provoke a bit of a giggle and soliciting YouTube links. I seem to remember another guy with your name who occasionally talked seriously about racism and went on marches in Manchester and that sort of thing. Perhaps he's a relation of yours? Is he dead now?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, nice dig HH, but I need to know - am I Streissand or Cher? I've nothing against the joos of course, but I'd really rather be a Red Indian. (Oops, sorry! Native American! - it's all in the acceptable words we use to paper over the underlying dry rot and crumbling plaster, isn't it?)
Here's your 'choon'
Love and peace, man. And don't get angry - what's the point anyway?
What do I think, Hank? I think we'd probably get on well in real life, but that your online personality has become cruel and pointless. You did that vicious thing that brusselsexpat did for fuck sake! And I didn't sign up to a socialist site. I don't know what to call myself any more.
ReplyDeleteI've got a soft spot for you too, Hank, as you well know. (I'm beginning to think it's between my ears).
ReplyDeleteYou can call me a lot of things, but I never do anything out of spite.
And if thin-skinned means not just laughing and shrugging off the jibes, then yeah I am thin-skinned. I have a lot to be thin-skinned about at times, though. And there is enough going on in my life right now that makes putting up with people talking shite about me on a website is neither here nor bloody there in the scheme of things.
All this started because I said I didn't like fighting with people on here because I thought of them as friends. Scherf pointed out all the reasons why he doesn't like me - so fucking what. You have given me a George Bush "you're either with us or against us" spiel which is better off in the playground, frankly - "If you like her, you can't be my friend" is puerile.
But anyway. Nuff said now. I will post on here what I like when I bloody like, and I won't post or argue just because someone tells me I have to, ta very much. It's called free will.
Heyhabib - funny as f00k as always. High five.
PeterB - I wouldn't bother going down that road. You could still have the coal-dust in the folds of your groin but you would never be working-class enough if they decided you weren't. I gave up worrying about that a long time ago.
Philippa and MsR - nil carborundum etc.
Like I said in an earlier post today - people on here only know what we talk about. They have no idea what we actually do. :o)
How do I define a socialist, Paul? Someone who believes in equal opportunities, and will abolish private schools and private health to get there. Someone who will impose 100% wealth tax so that everyone starts off on an equal footing.
ReplyDeleteHow do you define a socialist?
I don't subject those I disagree with to permanent abuse. I just don't buy into the bourgeois bollix about being "nice" to people who aren't "nice". If you don't like it, mate, fuck off to the Enid Blyton chat site.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete'You can't claim to be untrusted and be a waddya regular.'
ReplyDeleteWhy not? If you're concerned at the lack of anger and campaigning on waddya, surely the best way to counter that is to keep posting over there, and work for change from there.
You don't have a monopoly on integrity just because you shout louder and slag off more people than anyone else - plenty of people have immense integrity, but they don't feel the need to constantly ram it down everyone's throat, and just because they don't parade their anger and use it against others who have done nothing to deserve it except deal with life in a different way doesn't mean their contribution to society/equality/justice, whatever, isn't equally valid.
Hank
ReplyDelete"I've yet to read any sort of credible response to the point."
WHAT POINT?
I've recognised that you're angry, Hank - it's obvious. But what do you want?
And yes - I'm probably displaying more anger tonight than previously, that's for a very simple reason.
I've explained in the past that the reason I haven't get involved in the last fourteen times you've got nasty at people is because I was scared about you turning your shouty attention on me.
Well, you know what? Slow on the uptake, me, but I got there in the end. There's no need to be scared of you, because you aren't scary. You're dull. And all this anger is dull. Because it goes nowhere.
BB - 'They have no idea what we actually do.'
ReplyDeleteQuite. I had to find a phone number in the Bar Directory t'other day and it occurred to me to look up Burnout. I can reveal to the world that no-one of that name currently practices at the Bar.
It's all lies, I tells ya! LIEEEES!
".... Deano can sweep up the dislodged dust...."
ReplyDeleteThanks Scherf generous to the end. As I said above I hope you will be back soon and I do mean that, albeit that I disagree with both you and Hank about BB and one or two other things.
My working assumption is that if the bastards were really after me I would have as much chance of refuge at her door as at yours or Hanks. That hypothetical question of where I might turn if hounded, matters to me, it functions as a kind of divider, sorting those who I would take a chance on from those I would not.
I might be disappointed in my own judgement but then I might at your door too. I would be surprised in either case to be honest.
I thus consider her a friend and whilst I might wish she had a different point of view, on one or two matters, that for me is small beer in the scheme of things. She could and should be assured that I would wish that she could feel the same about me and my door.
I reached my opinion by reading what the poster BB had to say about a wide range of issues and matters and over a fair period of time. It's what I call listening.
At the end of that I had no choice but to reach a judgement on the balance of probabilities that the lady is sound. I very much hope that UT will last long enough that my my judgement will move to beyond reasonable doubt. I suspect that it will, in both senses.
I remain really sad at the turn of events not only of tonight but also of March 20Th The record is there it speaks for itself. And Hank on my reading of the record I still find you unfair (near to the point of cruelty) to Montana.
In a world in which I know there are more twisted right wing bastards and politically ignorant folk I consider it an indulgence of the informed and educated left to spend its spunk falling out with those broadly in agreement. It smacks of a preciousness that for me defies reason.
I spent much of my adult life working in the labour movement - it never ceased to amaze me that we on the left can put more energy into falling out with family members about manners and farts than getting at the real enemy.
The fucking Tories are better collectivists than we are - they pursue their perceived interests with more self discipline than we on the left have ever mustered.
As an older man I have no difficulty in accepting the reality that others may not give a flying fuck what I think about anything. It's no problem for me - what it ain't going to do is make me bitter, or abandon those values that have served me well thus far.
MsR - it never crossed my mind that a lass with your talent would be short of choice of bathing companions. Go slowly and enjoy the position. I hope you choose something with summat between the ears as well as between the legs.
Regards to all.
You've so brassed me off I may take to the drink for a day or two.
"Someone who will impose 100% wealth tax so that everyone starts off on an equal footing..."
ReplyDeleteOK, you've got my techy side out now.
Inherited wealth? Earned wealth? Saved wealth? How to distinguish... Put that in, and the real rich would off-shore, whereas the working class would be hit - shafted - and relieved of everything they had worked to build up, after tax, from their employment, and would what? start again from nothing with only two years left of working life?
You may bitch at the rest of us for not having any answers, but do you really have an answer?
@martillo - I shrug most things off on here, who cares anyway? But you're right, my postings on here have become cruel and pointless. I'm paying off debts an' all.
ReplyDeleteYou're one of a dwindling group of guys on here who's opinion I respect, and I think we would get on ok in real life. Except that I'd be wearing my Barca shirt and pointing and laughing at you(-;
@BB - we've all got a lot of shit going on at most times I guess. There's a few on here/CIF I've set out to piss off. You're not one of them. You'd know if you were (-; All the best.
I still think that you should all resign from waddya. En masse ideally.
Sorry folks but if attacking Peter Bracken is the only
ReplyDeletething that,s going to bind you lot together then i want no part of it?
And Hank you want to play cyber hardball with me then
bring it on.Cos let me tell you pal i,d wipe the floor
with you without coming out in a sweat.I live in real world and i,ve learned there are different ways of skinning a cat.However all you can do it seems is resort to schoolboy abuse when you,re cornered.Which exposes you for the pathetic fuckwit you really are.You got anything more to say 'shit for brains' i,m here waiting.
Trouble is, some people have never quite cottoned on to the fact that it is better to be inside the tent pissing out.
ReplyDeleteYou can't change anything if you're outside trying to piss in. No amount of class integrity is going to help if people just look at you and see a prole with a chip and an attitude. I learned that the hard way, and I did something about it.
Was it Gandhi who said "Be the change you want to see..." or something?
Or Michael Jackson "If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make the change".
Same choon, different lyrics. You want to change things, you have to change yourself first. And that means having the guts to do something extraordinary.
And no amount of whining and finger-pointing on websites will do it. Changing the world, a day at a time, doesn't come about by people complaining about what other people do or don't do.
Just shut the fuck up and get on with doing it - that is what works. And sod anyone pointing a finger at you.
peter bracken: >"(as I told Henry Porter only yesterday) celebrates the silent, ineluctable transfer of power from authority to values"
ReplyDeleteSorry, it reads like nonsense to me:
1. "silent": Can't be done. Whenever you transfer power from someone, they will scream, whether they're goodies or baddies.
2. If the "values" are market values, as they are in neolib anglosphere, all that's happening is the transfer of power from those who have it to those who have loads of money - more often than not, the very same people or their children. Not much use to socialism or equality.
3. If the "values" are egalitarian leveller values - ones which I would approve of - the transfer you cite is simply not happening.
As for your other stuff today, I agree with PhilippaB and cannot add anything.
@Phillipa - you're very bright and all, and you've got a very distinctive narrative voice. It's all good.
ReplyDeleteWhat you clearly aren't very good at is reading and comprehension. I've said more than once tonight what makes me angry about this place.
I'll give you a clue - "feet in two camps".
If you're in the mood for a row, I'm happy to oblige. But I'd prefer to row about the row I started.
@Hank
ReplyDeleteI,m over here mate!
Hank
ReplyDeleteYou're not reading me, darling.
There are two ways of changing things. One is to storm the Bastille. The other is to make your way into the world you want to change, be accepted in it, and then set off the bombs.
You don't have to sell your soul to do the latter - but what you do have to do is play the long game.
I don't despise people like Jess and Bella - we are all of us victims of our upbringing in one form or another. I am - you are - they are - every one of us is.
But to what extent do you think that we would be able to change things if we just go nose-to-nose with them all the time? Do you think they would just keel over in the face of a full-frontal attack and say "fair dos, you're right, we need to change what we are doing and saying"? Or do you think that there are better, more subtle but, ultimately, more influential methods?
Do you attract more flies with honey or vinegar?
Paul - you wouldn't, sweetie, either in the cyber world or the real one xx
ReplyDelete@BB - I know what you're saying about the tent, but your big problem is that the rich and powerful would love it if we all became Buddhists. They don't believe in reincarnation anyway, and if they did they'd have offshored enough cash to bribe Buddha for a great life next time around.
LOL at Lavartis, btw. :o)
ReplyDeleteHank, you've lost me completely on the Buddhist bit there, hon.
ReplyDeleteBeautifulBurnout: >"The other is to make your way into the world you want to change, be accepted in it, and then set off the bombs"
ReplyDeleteIf that's the chosen path, someone else has to remind those who have made their way in the world to set off all those figurative bombs they believed in decades ago, and to keep the figurative bombs safe, usable and modernised. A job for the likes of old me ?
@Hank
ReplyDeleteOh i think i would 'sweetie'-both in the real world
and cyber!
You are basically one of these post pubescent wankers
whose all talk.Talk of the 'revolution',making things
better for the working classes etc etc etc.When in
reality the only thing you really care about is
Hank Scorpio or whatever the fuck your real name is.
So why don,t you get back into your Tardis and go back
to your 1980,s loony left existance.It achieved nothing then and will achieve nothing now.A new politics is what is needed on the Left and if you
can,t see that then you are deluding yourself.
Right. So what youre angry about is some of us continuing to post on CIF and the UT simultaneously. Fine.
ReplyDeleteMy view is that while the Guardian is by no means perfect, it is the best newspaper of the bunch, and CIF is the best comment site.
I will never be entirely happy with it - but why should I be? I'm one person - if there was a newspaper that I agreed with entirely, it would be called the Philippa Times and would be fucking dull for the rest of you to read. Actually, it would, after a couple of days, be fucking dull for me to read.
Yes, sometimes, articles are just fucking appalling. But most of them aren't. Most of the time, I am challenged in my views, I am informed, I get into conversations with people I'd never normally 'meet', so my ideas have to develop, from cosy 'everybody knows that...' to actually having to back up what I say.
This is an off-shoot. I don't think there's anybody here who doesn't or didn't post on CIF. So I don't see the problem with doing both. Providing one is true to one's ideas - that to me is best expressed by explaining them. I someonbody chooses to boycott CIF, good for them, that's their decision - but it's not mine.
You said "Get angry about anything. Take your fucking pick." Fine. But I'm not sure that whether or not I choose to post on CIF is worthy of that kind of anger when there's a lot of other stuff to get angry about out there. When something on CIF makes me angry, I'll say so - but I'll try to do so in a way that makes people engage with the argument, not have the excuse to go "oh, she was just offensive, I'm not listening to her". If your aim is to change someone's mind, I don't think that just calling them names is going to cut it. You actually have to try to change their mind.
With, not at. 'tis all.
Honey or vinegar, BB?
ReplyDeleteYou're being dishonest, I think. You're not looking to undermine Cif, you like it.
I don't.
Scherfig said earlier that the unanswered question on here is what is the UT for? That's what I've continually asked.
Shaz posted a few minutes ago that it is possible to be untrusted and a waddya regular, and implied that if only waddya regulars could be as loud and as obnoxious as me on here then, well, ...actually I didn't follow shaz's argument.
But this really does go to the heart of the debate. This is what the likes of me, scherfig and MF have always argued.
We all understand what Cif is there for.
Do we all understand what the UT is there for?
I would suggest that we don't.
@BB
ReplyDeleteIf nothing else Hank has shown me just how contrary
you are.Not a pretty sight!
Lively - I was busy reading something else whilst casually posting here.
ReplyDelete"....Things have moved on at quite a pace
I'll give you a clue - "feet in two camps.."
If you're in the mood for a row, I'm happy to oblige. But I'd prefer to row about the row I started.........."
A foot in neither is a possibility.
Your outrage is understood and largely shared. Your general analysis of the structure and problems of the UK economy makes sense to me.
I think I might add that there is even a possibility that you underestimate the despair of the working classes - the immigration issue seems to me to be a manifestation of that.
All that said, I still see no virtue in pissing in the wind - which is what attacking mostly like minded folk amounts to.
The ground on which the left stand at this time ain't exactly overcrowded. I need to attract more not shit off those already here.
You respect my opinion Hank? That's a little ironic since I probably respect most people's opinion more than own.
ReplyDeleteStill, if you really do, mind if I offer some advice? Spend some time examining your own practice and ask yourself if it's really so much better than that of others. If it isn't, find a way to forgive yourself and them and. If it is, congratulations!
That's how I lost most of my anger. Don't know if it'll work for you...
@Phillipa - no, sorry, you've really missed the point. I've consistently said that the problem is swapping small talk with Jess and Bella, gossiping on Waddya. I haven'tg got a problem with Cif per se.
ReplyDelete@Paul - don't be a twat.
deano and BB, just to make things absolutely clear. I have no problems with BB as a person. I broadly agree with a lot of her politics. What I do have a problem with, BB, is that every time I have challenged your apparently sacrosanct and self-evidently correct views you have accused me of being ad hom (and several people have politely refuted this claim of yours on several occasions). What I also have a problem with is your dismissive attitude to my challenges to your orthodoxy - you run away from debate because, as you have said, I'm just 'arguing for the sake of arguing' and I'm just 'looking for a fight'. I find that patronising and insulting - you can't even give me the credit for having strongly held views that I have thought through and considered intellectually, just because they don't coincide with yours. You refuse to take it seriously. You put me on the same level as the BNP thickos that you spend so much time laughing at and ridiculing on Cif. It seems to me that you prefer shooting fish in a barrel, and getting kudos for it, than engaging in any real discussion with an equal. That doesn't make me dislike you as a person - how could it? I don't even know you. I'm sure you're a lovely person. It does however lead me to have almost zero respect for your on-line persona. Sorry about that, but you reap what you sow. I take the knocks for whatever negative reactions my own on-line persona elicits from other posters. Why can't you?
ReplyDeleteBefore the UT was the UT, it was the CiF Refugees' blog.
ReplyDeleteIt was set up as a way of continuing conversations which had been cut short on CiF - that was the raison d'etre for it. It was also set up to talk about things that were being modded on CiF. But it was always symbiotic with CiF. It still is.
Now, for a variety of reasons, I didn't notice Anne's piece about William Morris - if you troll back through the past week or so you will see that I have not been posting much because there has been some serious shit going down and, frankly, if I post at all it is to take my mind off it. You are not to know that. Scherfig is not to know that. I haven't spoken about stuff publicly because of little twerps like Bite the Hand and/or Pollyanna who snoop about and report things like classroom snitches.
But I do object to being told what I must and must not post on here. As far as I am aware, there were no membership rules when I signed up. And I won't have you and Scherf telling me who I am, what I am doing or what I should be posting because it is fucking stupid.
Anyhoo - end of rant. Where's Habib? We need some music.
...actually I didn't follow shaz's argument.
ReplyDeleteRead it again then.
I said that if you don't like what's going on over on cif, stay there and work for change from within.
I then went on to say that integrity, honesty and guts are not judged on how loudly you shout, or how much you insult others - many people who do neither have immense integrity and work for change in all sorts of areas which are not apparent from their online personas.
Sorry it wasn't clear first time.
It's true, martillo. Not sure about your advice but I'm keeping my fingers crossed for your boys over the next few weeks (-;
ReplyDelete"And its wankers like you who have played their part dragging the Left into the gutter!"
Yeh, that'll be me, the angry bloke who stuck two fingers up to the corporations.
Sober up, tomorrow, Paul, and read a book or two.
@Hank
ReplyDeletei,m not the twat here mate.If you roll back the
thread it is you that started it.But like the pathetic
schoolgirl you are you are now trying to twist things
round.
Where i am an idiot is in my attempt to try and open
a dialogue with you.Obviously a total waste of time!
Anyway i,m going to crack open a bottle of good red,
listen to some good music and remember that there
is a lot more to life than engaging in a spat with a
vacuous nonentity like you.Sweet dreams!
A little night music...
ReplyDelete@shaz - yeh, good points. I agree with you of course but I've never seen much evidence of change working from within, either on Cif or elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteAnd you need to read my posts again - the major problem with Cif is that the change from within is driven by fluffy middle class posters on waddya, who only ever post on waddya, and who seem to have a disproportionate influence on Cif even though their opinions are largely vacuous and trivial.
Their influence seems to extend to getting fluffy middle class posters with fluffy animal avatars to be commissioned to write fluffy middle class tosh.
I can live without it, shaz.
Just as I can live without this site being colonised by fluffy middle class people who only ever get angry when fluffy middle class lifestyles get criticised.
OK, CIF is fine, it's interacting with Jess and Bella that's the problem. OK. Got that. I realise that you think that's bad - fine, don't do it. I don't think it's bad - I will continue to do it. I just don't consider Jess to be responsible for everything that I can criticise about the site - she works there.
ReplyDeleteI mean, when I was working, and client after client got shafted by HMRC, did I take that out on the people I knew who worked in HMRC? Or did I save my powder for responding to each and every stupid letter received with a polite and well-thought-out argument?
It may sometimes be reasonable to hold someone personally responsible for something - but that's for higher up the tree, to me.
And I'm not 'in the mood for a row', I don't like rows. I'm just tired...
Blimey, Scherf. Just keep stoking up those resentments, won't you? You've remembered slights I didn't even know I had committed. :o)
ReplyDeleteI do remember the "you'd argue black is white and red is no colour at all" bit, though. I seem to recall that it was becaue of you not taking the hint that I didn't want to fight with you. I still don't want to fight with you.
And I most certainly do not put you in the category of the BNP numpties - I will fight with them because they are cretins for whom I have no respect whatsoever. I don't like fighting with you because I have a lot of respect for you and don't want to fall out.
But sometimes enough's enough. Sniping at me last night after I'd gone was unnecessary and did actually piss me off. So I thought "what the fuck" and responded this morning.
I am generally - outside of work - a very conciliatory person. I don't like personal conflict. I know that some of the stuff I say on here is vacuous and without meaning, but sometimes I just want a change of scenery - if that makes any sense at all - because sometimes I don't like the reality that is going on around me, and it is a means of escape to be able to chat about silly shit on here, or pull a BNPer to shreds over there, because it takes my mind off what is really going on.
I don't want to fight with you. I like you. But I have got to the stage now where I won't take it on the chin if you snipe at me either. There is no need for it.
And I apologise unreservedly for upsetting you when I did, because I certainly didn't intend to.
Scherf
ReplyDeleteI often struggle/think there is a syntax problem with 'ad hom' allegations/attacks.
Wiki puts it thus:
An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: "argument toward the person" or "argument against the person")
Fuck it man, if they can't decide if the argument is toward or against the person why should I/We be surprised if it gives rise to such division.
Hank - 'I've never seen much evidence of change working from within, either on Cif or elsewhere.'
ReplyDeleteThe day you give up though is surely the day we're all fucked - I used to spend my days submitting endless social policy reports and feeling as though I was banging my head against the proverbial brick wall, but without that evidence there was no chance of changing anything. The trouble is that most of the time change happens so infinitesimally that it seems as though it's not happening at all: it's only when you look back to how things used to be that you realise there has been a change.
Hank
ReplyDelete"Just as I can live without this site being colonised by fluffy middle class people who only ever get angry when fluffy middle class lifestyles get criticised."
Soz, but that's bollox as well. We might not all get angry at the same time, but we get as angry as you do about things, Hank.
BB - vacous, well perhaps a tiny bit.....
ReplyDeletedeano - tedious boring fart, well perhaps a tiny bit...
A much more civilised set of exchanges than March 20th......................thus far at least.
You still haven't got it, Philippa. You're aq million miles from getting it. I work for HMRC, I don't dictate policy. Jess, Bella and all dictate policy on Cif and engage with the "safe" punters on waddya.
ReplyDeleteThis argument has been running for a year on here. You don't get it, neither does BB, nor did kiz or Jay or Bru. Beats the hell out of me to be honest.
You're either untrusted, in the sense that you disagree with Cif policy in some way (editorial, political etc) or you're not.
To be completely frank, Phillipa, I'm not ashamed to work for HMRC and I've never made a secret of it or apologised for it.
It's a worthwhile job. Much more so than whatever it is that the great equal opportunist, Alan Rusbridger, arranged for his daughter over at Jaffa Cake Central.
What do you get really angry about, BB? Really angry about?
ReplyDeleteThe trouble is that most of the time change happens so infinitesimally that it seems as though it's not happening at all: it's only when you look back to how things used to be that you realise there has been a change.
ReplyDeleteDifficult to disagree with that Shaz Tis true.
It shouldn't excuse, or exclude, us from having a view on whether it be petrol or water we pour on the fire of discontent should it ever start.
@ Hank: - 'the major problem with Cif is that the change from within is driven by fluffy middle class posters on waddya, who only ever post on waddya, and who seem to have a disproportionate influence on Cif even though their opinions are largely vacuous and trivial.'
ReplyDeleteDoes that matter as long as there are some people with integrity on there? Change doesn't happen all at once, and even if only a handful of people change their views because of something they read on waddya, surely that's better than nothing?
Hank - I know you haven't, and that's part of the reason (the other being my lack of alternative employment) for the analogy.
ReplyDeleteThing is - the stated policy is one thing. The problem is that the practice doesn't follow it. This seems to more to be more Seaton / Brown or individual ATLers than 'policy'.
Jess is an Ed Ass, for heaven's sake, if you think she has any real power...
Even DavidS is hamstrung by the presence of AB.
I criticise where I think necessary. But I don't see the harm in chatting to someone who works for the institution I criticise, whether that's having a coffee with Pat after a meeting or sharing a petit blague with Jess on Waddya. I may be kidding myself, but maybe criticism from a 'friendly voice' has more impact. It probably has no impact. But it won't have less impact.
And the reason I missed your point all this time was that you seemed soangry that to find out it's about sharing small-talk is actually something of a surprise.
Anyway - it's midnight here, I'm going to bed. Happy Easter, all.
I spend my days getting angry - angry that kids I teach have parents who don't give a fuck about them, angry that parents who do give a fuck are not given the support they need by statutory authorities, angry that kids we've referred have their cases closed because statutory authorities haven't had a reply to letters because their their parents can't read, angry that there's no speech therapy provision for kids that need it, angry that our FLO is shite - and that's just work. Then I get home and read the national shit, and if I got angry about that too I'd never get out of bed.
ReplyDeleteBB, I wasn't aware that you'd gone last night when I posted. For me, it would defeat the purpose to post something that couldn't be responded to. But it says a lot that you regard opposition to your views as 'sniping'. Kinda fits in quite nicely with my previous comment that you don't take my views seriously, dont you think? Anyway, it's not fighting. It's having your opinions challenged. It's having to think about what you believe and why you believe it. It's having to defend your stance when it doesn't seem so self-evident to others. It's quite healthy really.
ReplyDeleteAnd no apology should be necessary (from you to me or me to you), let's pretend to be adults, that should be fun. It might even catch on here :o)
Here's a song for you rocket man
btw, on the ad hom thing, I will defend you to the death against real ad homs. Don't conflate what I say with the likes of Bitey. I deleted a lot of his comments here a while back, and also (probably) got him banned from Cif as jiasa. I make no apologies for that - freedom of speech? Censorship? Fuck him.
Happy Easter.
Shaz - what sort of change are you looking for? The change on Cif that's been driven by the regulars on waddya, the regulars who only ever post on there and never post on the political blogs, has led to a slew of middle class "oh poor me" sob stories from the likes of Cordelia.
ReplyDeleteHere's another thing - the end of year poll for Cif poster of the year - nine or ten nominees, all but one of whom was a waddya regular. I wouldn't have voted for any of them.
I'd be fucking amazed if anyone changed their views because of something they read on waddya - it's the bland leading the bland.
What do I get really angry about?
ReplyDeleteKids in the Youth Court who are convicted by middle class muppets - sorry, that should read magistrates - because they take the word of a lying scumbag of a police officer over that of the kid every time.
People with genuine claims for asylum being judged by middle-class immigration judges to be "not credible" because they don't have a letter from their local police force confirming how they were tortured and for how long.
People evicted by the blood-sucking bankers from their homes because they have fallen on hard times and missed three payments on their mortgage.
People forced to live in shit housing with central heating that never works and mould on the walls because that is the best they can afford.
People told that if the don't take a cut in pay/change to their work conditions they will be made redundant, while the senior management are still paying themselves bonuses and driving around in mercs.
Governments who give all our hard earned tax money away to their friends in the City then expect us to swallow cuts in the services we have already fucking paid for.
Policemen who will lie on oath just to get a "result".
Government spokespeople who tell lies to break strikes.
So-called Labour governments which are more right-wing that fucking Thatcher.
The fact that there is barely a fag-paper between New Labour and the Tories.
Governments who are perfectly happy to stir up racial hatred against the very immigrants they invited here in the first place on the basis that as long as the proles are fighting between themselves, they will forget the way in which the government has royally shafted them.
MPs who spend money on duck houses while children are going to be hungry.
Trans-national corporations that bribe despot leaders in less-developed countries to leech all their natural resources, displacing people from their homes and farms and forcing them to work in their factories to earn enough money to buy the fruit that they used to be able to pick for free on their farms.
Those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head, but I am sure there are many more, if I put my mind to it.
@phillipa - it's not about sharing small talk, and you know it. It's about being complicit, smiling fondly on the bourgeois nepotism while pretending to get irritated about social justice.
ReplyDeletescherf
ReplyDeleteChallenge me on what I say, by all means. Don't challenge me on who you think I am. That is what I took away from what you said last night. You were having a go at the person you thought I was, not the opinions I hold.
And Happy Easter to you too. x
Sorry, BB, was just working. Here have a song.
ReplyDeleteOh by he way young miss on UT2?
ReplyDeleteas I write at around 11.15pm on Good Friday our counter reveals that there are 31 punters on-line here at UT.
Including a regular from Greece.
The dynamics of this place always amaze me
And I love Kate Bush - thanks for that, Scherf!
ReplyDeleteHere is one of my faves, and one that brings a tear to my eye whenever I listen to it.
Dont' give up
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi All--I'ts flaming up again, I see. My purpose for coming here is to read different views and stick in my own once in a while. Not interested in jumping in to vitriolic exchanges. The UT is a departure from my regular life and I enjoy it.
ReplyDeleteHank--I won't slag you off when you're not here and have two feeet in 10 different camps. Spreads me thin it does.
BTW--Hell of a game with the Arse and Barca, no?
Hank
ReplyDeleteI do.
'Here's another thing - the end of year poll for Cif poster of the year - nine or ten nominees, all but one of whom was a waddya regular. I wouldn't have voted for any of them.'
ReplyDeleteNo, nor me - so I didn't.
Re change: I'm looking for the kind of change that challenges complacency and lazy attitudes, the kind of attitudes that state categorically that everyone on benefit is a scrounger, that everyone who lives in LA housing owns a fuck-off dog and neglects their kids, that all asylum seekers are illegal immigrants, that all strikers are work-shy troublemakers, that I'm alright Jack so fuck the rest - but I would also challenge the view that everyone on Cif has the same views as some of the waddya regulars and therefore should be disregarded.
You're never going to get everyone in agreement but surely there are plenty of people who are open to different views and are prepared to learn from them - bollocks, I'm talking utter shite, sorry! I don't think that either giving up, or shouting at those who don't think exactly the same way as you is the right thing to do though.
Hi Boudican - good to read you.
ReplyDeleteHank FFS - the cab rank rule is another of the legal myths. Chambers are ruled by 'clerks' in league with senior partners.
That famous Carmen QC (libel twat) was only available on a cab rank principle.......
@boudican - the arsa-barsa game was good, but I enjoyed the Munich-Munich game more. The last two minutes anyway.
ReplyDelete@shaz - another good post. You're absolutely right, but I can't be arsed with shouting anymore, or reasoning, or trying to explain why this place or Cif is being abused by complacent middle class twats who wanna talk ablout jaffa cakes, or shoes, or shopping.
Hi deano--How are the crenellations coming along in the brewhouse? Have you hopped any ale yet?
ReplyDeleteThe counter is an interesting feature. The geographical dispersion doesn't jibe with the comments sometimes.
Hi Habib--Working on a holiday? Well maybe not for all eh? It's a public holiday for the majority over here. Shops,bars are open so those need to be staffed.
deano
ReplyDeleteCarmen was only available if his clerk could find which doorway he had slept in, drunk, the night before. He used to go scouring for him round the usual haunts, pick him up, take him back to Chambers for a wash and brush up and a change of shirt and cart him back off to the High Court again.
And the bloke was a bloody legend.
BB, I take your point. I might try to be more careful in future but I'm not going to walk on fucking eggshells with people who should know better than to be so precious. Bit of rough and tumble, eh? I've just re-read my comment from yesterday. I think you make too many assumptions about what I think. I suppose it's hard to seperate the 'persona' from the person when you are both person and persona, but you have to try and look at the persona that is you from outside. It's difficult but it might be necessary. A key question might be 'are you happy with what your alter-ego has just posted?' I would suggest that if the answer is always YES!, then you're doing something wrong :0) A bit philosophical that, but maybe it's something that Emily could use for her homework.
ReplyDeleteLove, peace, understanding and all that stuff.
Here's another song have you ever seen the rain
Oh my. I must apologise to the Pope for being so mean and nasty about Catholic priests who abuse children.
ReplyDeleteAfter all, it is the priests who are the victims in all of this, isn't it?
FFS
Fair dos, Scherf. x
ReplyDeletebtw, speaking of personas and reading ones own posts, please regard my last post as being in a conciliatory, vaguely sardonic and borderline humourous tone. Rather than tetchy and petulant. Or I could just delete it (only joking, deano).
ReplyDelete@ Hank - then don't. But don't stop posting - your knowledge and insight contribute a lot.
ReplyDelete@scherfig - ah bless mwah mwah (-;
ReplyDeleteAre you untrusted? Or trusted?
I'm neither obviously. Just enjoying the game as a neutral spectator.
And now we are squeezing revenue from the corpses of the Haitian dead...
ReplyDeleteFFS Pt 2
As you say BB, Carmen cab rank like fucking hell he was.
ReplyDeleteBoudican life is fine some distance yet from the hopping
(I picked ((worked the tractor)) Northern Brewer Hops in Kent as a lad - I love the sight and smell of lady librarians but push come to shove
I might just have to choose Northern Brewer. That said the push would have to be firm ....feet in two or more camps etc.)
Regards friend.
.."Or I could just delete it (only joking, deano)....".
ReplyDeleteOh Scherf its all about the learning of the apprentices....................myself included.
Just enjoying the game as a neutral spectator.
ReplyDeleteGotcha, Hank. I see where you're coming from. Are you the sort of neutral spectator with the big belly who rips his shirt off and runs onto the pitch while the match is still in progress. Please tell me you're not.
mwah, mwah.
"....angry argumentative fuckers like me and scherfg don't really belong here...."
ReplyDeletewhy the fegg you assume it's a decision for you to make is beyond me ken.
Collectivists can't be expected to take kindly to being told what's what by individualists.
Well I don't know, Hank - I think angry argumentative fuckers have their place just as much as those who are less outspoken. As long as it's angry argument with some respect, maybe.
ReplyDeleteAnyway - night all - sleep well.
Yeah, that's me, scherf, the neutral spectator who's not even watching the game, cos hee's not really that bothered, he got a freebie for being employee of the week or some such shit, and turned up cos it was free and he'd have an opportunity to have a rant about something he knew nothing about.
ReplyDeleteYou chased me off this site, scherf, as you've tried to chase BB off. You chased kiz and bru off too. Your judgement is mostly good.
I love you lots.
But lets be frank, scherf, you could argue for Ireland.
xx
@Hank and scherf
ReplyDeleteYou ain,t gonna chase me off guys.Betta get used to
me being around.Nite!
Arguing for Ireland might be thought more romantic than arguing for Nottinghamshire but not the same as arguing for Yorkshire.
ReplyDeleteThese things slide 'neath the radar - but not the record.
Your sound young Paul.
ReplyDeleteBye, Paul! Night, Hank.
ReplyDeleteSee all you guys around some time. Stay cool, and give Jess my love. (And remember, she doesn't choose to that Guardian job - she was trafficked. And Bidisha is opppressed by R4. They nearly stopped her going to Oxford, the misogynist fuckers!)
me and you then Hank all else gone?
ReplyDeleteI'm here, Deano.
ReplyDeleteHeheheh, if it's just scherfig, deano and me there's gonna be all kind of carnage on here....
ReplyDeleteYou well friend?
ReplyDeleteyou well PJ friend
ReplyDeleteFine up to a point, deano. And you?
ReplyDeletebetween here and there our kid
ReplyDeletetruth be known I've no problems or complaint.
ReplyDeleteGood. I was vaguely working on a piece about online communities, and the importance of identity, and the massive waste of time involved in pretending to be something you aren't, just for the lulz.
ReplyDeletePerhaps I'll leave it until tomorrow.
Ah, deano, we all have reason for complaint. Fate is always waiting around the next corner with a stuffed eelskin.
ReplyDeleteSeen what the young lass on UT2 and my friend in Brazil was thinking about too?
ReplyDeleteYes, that was what stimulated it really. I've been involved in online community stuff for more than 20 years, and there are some interesting common threads that arise all the time. I think it's to do with mediated and unmediated communication, and people feeling secure or insecure in who they are. My online name has always been my real name, for instance, and I don't say anything I don't mean for the sake of argument.
ReplyDeleteLet's leave it till tomorrow, when the circular firing squad might have dispersed.
"....Ah, deano, we all have reason for complaint....."
ReplyDeleteWell bro I have a sense of it
but,
fegg it
me, mam, sisters, sometime wife, daughter, sons, and mates for life.
All turned out coherent - what the fuck should I complain of?
blah
ReplyDeleteYou're all up late tonight. Only 5pm here. Beer and pussy night though isn't it?
ReplyDeleteBB--If you're still up and about, another shitty mistake by Brown. Fucking disgusting that the religions are not taxed but donations to a country ravaged by disaster are. Sureley the proles will notice this (well we can dream, no?) and punish the prick accordingly.
deano--Yeah, some good stuff on UT2.
I honestly stop and think:
ReplyDelete...........
Oops, just trying to work out how to show Chekov how to post.
ReplyDeleteStill, while I'm here, regards to Untrusties. Real or otherwise.
Fencewalker--Thanks, I think.
ReplyDeleteDon't mensh.
ReplyDeleteEvening, Fence.
ReplyDeleteHlo there.
ReplyDeleteOh right, PeterJ, let's leave it until tomorrow when the circular firing sqaud has dispersed along with the rifleman who offered you a mobile phone number to call when you were on this site and suicidal. Remember that?
ReplyDelete"Let's leave it til tomorrow, when the circular firing squad might have dispersed."
You're a cunt.
Hank, thanks for that. Yes, I remember it clearly, although it's good to know you do too.
ReplyDeleteIt's also good to get the attention of the UT's Jimmy Porter, the revolutionary taxman. I was wondering what it would take.
Would you like me to call you a cunt? You're not a cunt. And neither am I.
Want to take out any more of your own side with your random swipes?
Carry on gentlemen, I'm out for now. The dog's walk takes precedence over you lot.
ReplyDeleteJust another song, no opinion, unless someone can lend me one? I've got a fiver in my back pocket for a good one, but it is my last note...
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteTsk, Habbers - this is how rock should be done. With a liddle bit o Funk:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HfG82wg_kQ
The repeated phrases are definitely Homeric.
ReplyDelete"Want to take out any more of your own side with your random swipes?"
ReplyDeleteOh, god, yeh, that worries me. I care about my own side deeply. I couldn't sleep the night some guy on here claimed to be suicidal.
Hello and welcome Homer
ReplyDeletethat means no more than what it says - welcome.
Well said, deano. Let's welcome Homer, and welcome back Fencewalker. Bless 'em.
ReplyDeleteRight wing trolls. What is the point???
Yeah, that's me Right Wing. And trolling, obviously.
ReplyDeleteNight Hank.
Fuck, has anyone seen a copy of Völkischer Beobachter? I seem to have dropped it.
ReplyDeleteFence, funky. Loved it. Funk you, too! :-)
ReplyDeleteWhatever you decide to do with this site, Montana, don't ever ban anyone.
ReplyDeleteOne of the really endearing things about the UT is that you're very tolerant, and every twat with an internet connection gets to speak their brains over here.
It's sweet that you allow morons like Fencewalker to have their moment in the sun, sweet but it doesn't really do you any favours with those who are more interested in talk than chat...
Fenbcewalker, eh? What a twat.
Anyway, I'm rambling now. It used to be fun, MW. Hey, remember when it used to be fun?
And then FenceWalker turned up. )-;
I think it would be fair to say that, political differences set aside for the higher purpose of music, everyone has forgotten just how fucking good Neil Diamond once was. Let me remind you. And can somone please post this on waddya, so that a serious, angry, vicious argument can develop between hermione and killingtime. I'd pay to see that.
ReplyDeletedry your eyes
Hi Montana
ReplyDeleteSaw you over on waddya. Haven't caught up with comments here since morning.
The exchanges with Need4 really got me thinking about GM crops. Long time since they've been in the news here. I have seen some adverse criticism from farmers in US - is the debate still live there?
If the Hindu assessment is correct things look bleak for lots of Indian farmers.