"JayReilly said... Happy birthday to the UT ......, i still have no net at home so won't be able to attend - but i will be there in spirit in my most audacious and provocative party dress.
(Well done to Montana for keeping the place together another year.)
And good morning Annetan. 18 February, 2011 07:59"
Belated birthday greetings to Leni! Sorry that I didn't make it on the day.
I'm so grateful for another year with you. The page views counter says 398,900 right now, which means that we should also be hitting 400,000 page views today. That just boggles my mind. (And I'm not sure that that even goes back to the beginning -- I think that might just be since 1 July, 2010, when the stats became available.)
@Duke:
I gave up on the broadcast networks as a source of news several years ago. I usually watch Rachel Maddow & Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC, but haven't for about a month. (Long story and I wouldn't want to bore badpenny with it :-) )
However, since I did see your request fairly early in the day (home from work for probably a week. Another story that will bore badpenny -- injured my knee at work on Thursday) I watched MSNBC & CNN for awhile to see how they were covering it and I have to say that they both had fairly balanced coverage in the bits that I saw. One woman hosting a show on MSNBC during the daytime (don't remember what her name was) even struck me as somewhat supportive of the demonstrators.
As for South Dakota -- those people are just fucking insane.
Special thanks to Montana for keeping the show on the road and to those who occasionally step in to bung up a thread or rummage through the lost property bins.
I seems both longer and shorter than two years - as it should.
A stage in infant development characterised by terrific mood swings, defiance, frustration, negativity, saying no to everything and temper tantrums.
Happy 2nd birthday UT! And a huge thanks to Montana for keeping this place going. Major Bracken can’t make it today unfortunately, but he did ask me to pass on the following:
”The Untrusted- Peddling the agenda of deluded leftism since 2009”
Montana re: Wisconsin,
I do wonder to what extent there will be a bandwagon effect if any. I was reading that North Carolina (the poorest state in the USA according to what I was reading) has also imposed savage cuts as has Minnesota. For millions of Americans, the race to the bottom is already complete and I do wonder when the breaking point will be reached.
Many thanks to Montana for keeping it all together.
Just as we were deluded into thinking spring was finally on its way, it snows. The resident blackbird in my garden looks downcast as he hops between the daffodil shoots.
Peter, I’ve done the full beard and goatie but never had the balls just to try the moustache only option. When I played Sunday league football I grew a Danny McGrain effort in the vain hope it would raise my playing standards to the level of the greatest right back British football has produced. No such luck.
If I was to grow a tache, I would go for a Charles Rennie Mackintosh or Robert Louis Stephenson For some reason, sitting on a porch in Samoa coughing up my consumption ridden lungs as I bang out seminal Victorian novels has an appeal.
Mitchum would look effortlessly cool even dressed as a clown. He scares the shit out of me in "Night of the Hunter" and the original "Cape Fear" though.
No, Your Grace, I've never been of that persuasion. I get a not shaving rash if I don't shave for about three days. Besides, white hair and black moustache is never a good look.
Congrats to UT. Thanks to Montana for maintaining it and the patience of those slung into the spam folder (never happened to me but then that must be because I am purer than the driven snow ;-) ).
I have an uneasy feeling about the all the Middle East & Arab (and Iran who are not Arabic I believe) protests. Something will turn out very nasty which ever way it appears to go. Either full on repression or some 'democracy' that will be a puppet of some external power or simply a sham. Ever read 'The Shock Doctrine'? In that book it describes how neoliberals use violent change for their own ends, be it freak weather or political. I have a horrible feeling something like that happening before we realise.
Big Society community organisers to get £20,000 By Ben Glaze, Press Association
Community organisers in David Cameron's Big Society will be paid £20,000 during their first year, the Government revealed today.
Up to 500 senior organisers will be trained over the next four years, with the cash granted to help them through their initial 12 months.
They will be supported by another 4,500 part-time workers and volunteers.
Civil Society Minister Nick Hurd said today: "The organisers, who will be driven by local communities' needs, will encourage social action and enable individuals to shape the services that matter most to them.
"The Big Society is about empowering people and community organisers will play a key role by giving people a chance to improve the community in which they live."
Big Society advisor Lord Wei said: "Getting well-trained people out into communities to help mobilise and facilitate is an essential step towards delivering the Big Society on the ground.
"This is vital in generating the 'ground-up' approach needed to harness the energy and ideas of individuals and communities."
Meanwhile, the Cabinet Office today announced the body which will train a "neighbourhood army", central to the Prime Minister's plans for the Big Society, will be Locality.
Chief executive Steve Wyler said: "This is an exciting opportunity for everyone, from national Government to local groups and individuals, to work together and help ordinary people achieve extraordinary things and shape the future of their localities.
"We are proud to be selected as the national delivery partner for the programme. As an independent, community-led movement, Locality can draw on the wealth of practical knowledge and experience found across our nationwide network, to ensure community organisers are truly rooted in the needs of their communities."
The organisers will first appear in 10 areas including London, Birmingham, Bristol, Cornwall and Norfolk.
..........
Worth repeating the whole thing, since it is riddled with quotes from creatures who cannot quite manage to speak like ordinary, real people but who can trip and trot out balderdash and claptrap like the best lickspittles and blatherskites anyone could possibly hope to have meddling in and messing up their lives.
The government has refused to say whether a small tax on idiotic gobshites using meaningless soundbite jargon at, say, a pound a word would plug the hole in Broken Britain's finances in about six months.
If you catch one of these prattlers alive, try nailing their tongue to the pavement.
so we are to be accosted, bamboozled and jollied along by community orgainisers to --do what?
Community volunteers are already struggling as funding is cut, community centres increase rents or are closing leaving no community meeting or activity space available.
i think a jargon spouting organiser bobbing cheerfully about telling us how to reinvent the wheel of community activity might get more than a tongue nailed to the pavement.
I wonder if they realise they will come up against people who have spent years volunteering and know how the '3rd sector' and grant funding works ?
Are they closing community centres in Cardiff - suggestion herethat in one ward they will all be closed - provoking anger and anxiety.
We , so far , are keeping ours. Well used by Youth Club (vol run) and playgroup funded by charity. The pensioners have own building - also rentedfrom council.
I had a tache once, in my early twenties. As I had fairly cropped hair at the time, I tended to get mistaken for either a copper or a Friend of Dorothy. I bet Tom Selleck never had these problems.
Sorry, I was the one who ate all the peanuts and trod on the vol aux vents and made a mess on the floor.
Leni
Strangely, I also think the political shitdribblers and their hyper-fellating commercial bedfellows intent on making a killing from people's misery are also mindlessly sowing the seeds of their own downfall.
Once people see the inevitable numbers of this masterplan and the fact that millions of people are going to suffer for the sake of a few thousand, we will see bankers and tax-fiddlers and politicos wrenched from their glinting limousines and dazzling offices.
They are simply betting on the idea that we will take it lying down.
Once the trouble starts, they will have no idea and no ability to stop it.
They may think it will simply need police with teargas and rubber-bullets to oversee the queues at the municipal soup-kitchens.
i can imagine the reaction here to a soup kitchen type charity food parcel distribution - particularly when it is understood that the organisers are paid and the food donated freely. this community - like many others - has a long history of supporting each other through hard times and all have stories about the soup kitchens of the thirties. One old man told me , when I first came here, that as a child he had stood waiting for the soup - holding a jam jar as he had no cup.
will people be prepared to undergo this humiliation again ?
as numbers increase the force of anger will rise. Platutudes will not compensate for or cover up the reality for much longer.
I think that part of what's going on is that people are waking up to the fact that much of this "economic crisis" and the state budget shortfalls that have been going on for years now are illusions. Corporations have been making record profits while extorting more and more tax breaks from state governments by threatening to relocate. If the wealthy & these corporations were paying their fair share, schoolkids wouldn't be packed 30 or more to a classroom and using 25 year old, out of date textbooks.
As far as moustaches go, I don't generally like them. They tend to look sleazy to me, no matter what the style or how well-groomed they are. That said..... Sigh...
Clegg, when facing about twenty students in a choreographed discussion, looked queasy and in need of a fresh pair of underpants.
You've hit the nail on the end.Whatever the historical shortcomings of our 'democracy' politicians of old were more at least likely to get on a soapbox and face the public.Nowadays politicans are cossetted by armies of security guards,handpicked audiences,pre-scripted interviews and a media that seems to be increasingly more about setting the agenda for policy making rather than vigourously questioning it.
It seemed to start at the 1997 election, when people said that Blair and his henchmen were making what looked like spontaneous "meet and greet" processions through the throngs of filthy people, but it turned out that these were events from which ordinary people had been culled and banished.
Not many months later, you may remember Blair being confronted by a woman at a hospital, where her husband was having a heart operation.
He is clearly stunned that a mere mortal has been allowed to foul the ground so close to his own magnificent presence.
He is clearly speechless. He shrugs and blusters and grins and waves his arms around and is about as uncomfortable as he might be to suddenly find himself having a dump on a lavatory from which he looks up to find that he is being watched by a crowd of people and he is actually in the middle of a shopping-centre.
Obviously, "some bigoted woman" had been stupidly let through the human shield which was there to sequester him from shitbag humanity.
Last election, nobody came round to canvass.
There were just occasional newsletters and leaflets declaring how wonderful each candidate was and promising that they would spend every waking hour working their fingers to the bone for the constituents.
Strangely, I have heard precisely nothing from our MP since.
So, that'll be his tongue nailed to the pavement and his sticky, pilfering hands nailed to the wall.
And huge thanks to Montana for keeping this place going - it is much loved and enjoyed by many, gets up the nose of a few (bwahahahahahaha!) and the resident trolls are good value for money too for the most part.
Speaking of resident trolls, someone better call the NSPCC right now because this mother has a ginormous glass of brandy and coke in front of her and intends drinking herself into oblivion this evening. :o)
Very tired but have now signed off hospital duty for a couple of days at least now that my father's partner has taken over the reins, as it were, so I am going to relax, watch shite on TV, gad about irresponsibly on the intarwebs and let off some steam.
Some chap who was on the telly at lunchtime - didn't get who he was, other than he was an Arab commentator of some kind as it was all subtitled with no sound on - summed it up for me with the Big Society when he described it simply as the Coalition pushing the problems of government onto the people.
Moustaches - Yeuch! Sorry to anyone who has one but honestly they are not good. Even Robert Redford can't carry one off. Kudos to Gregory Peck though - he even looks cool with a tache!
The other half grew a beard and tache combo recently and when the hair started to hang over his top lip I refused kiss him anymore. It's gone now thank the lord. I love a few days of growth though has to be said - it kind of highlights a good jawline.
Good music from Atomboy, PeterJ and Sheff...! And Montana comes in with a rare old bit of funk. I've posted a lot of music in the last year and a bit that I've been here, so I'm going to listen anyone else's...
Well, what can I say? What a beautiful record that was!
I meant to say to Leni.... lyrics of the song I posted yesterday were not appropriate, but the loveliness of the song in general and Harriet Wheeler's voice was ;)
Let me just add, that my very old friend who werks in ye music biz (after a fashion) had 'connections' for her 40th birthday a few years back.. let's just say she was, literally, the kiss of death to 2 famous musicians who had agreed to play for her .... a story for the next meet up.... ;)
Sorry to be a killjoy on saturday night but it's just been reported that so far an estimated 84 anti government protesters have been killed in Libya alone.The UK government has protested although i'm not sure that will make any difference to Gadaffi.When you've been in power as long as he has you tend to think you're invincible..
Paul - if anything 84 deaths is an understatement - although its difficult to tell exactly what's going on as the internet has been intermittent and people there have found it difficult to get news out. Still people are managing to tweet and use landlines. The hospital in Benghaz is overun with caualties, has run out of blood and is pleading for donations.
@ shelfpixie, unofotunately there is no horrific footage of the millions dead in Darfur, and no commentry on the eight Million children that die in Africa and Asia each and every year, What a world,
@chekhov - that's Acker Bilk again - what Van the Man clip did you want to share? Her name is G ... L ... O ... Rrrrrrrrrr ... GLORIA! (that's technically Them but a rousing tune all the same!)
Hey Atomboy - sorry, but Julie Brown is just waaaaaay funnier than them! I wish I could link to 'The Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun' but the vid got yanked from Utube ages ago. Granted, the song's lyrics are still amazing but it takes the video to make you cry from laughter.
@smtx01 - agreed, 4 Non Blondes takes me back a ways, too. Used to sing along at the top of my lungs, driving up the 405 [freeway in L.A.] "what's goin' on?!".
Nostalgia of that sort easily turns to morbidity at this time of night, thought, so here's another pick-me-up:
Classic line from this song for me: "She's filing her nails while they're dragging the lake"
Reminds me of Lauren Bacall and Humphry Bogart in one of those movies screen written by Raymond Chandler with Bogart playing the role of Phillip Marlowe.
Which also reminds me of something more contemporary; what happenned to "PhillipaB"?
If anyone on here still posts on "wadya" tell her to get her arse over here pdq!
@heyhabib - nope, I'm the same Shazzbot as on t'other place. I'm also shazznotbot but that's some weirdo place I logged into for The Independent's Live Journal. I forgot I had a Google login. So apologies for two personae in this same thread.
I've been a Weird Al fan since back in the day when all his parodies were accordian-based - as he got more slick some of the basic humour got lost, but there are still gems if you look for them.
How 'bout the ultimate in pop reinvention change-off - David Bowie v Madonna? Who'd win? [nothing to do with popularity, just who managed the most, and most different, changes of style in their career]
I said I would repost:
ReplyDelete"JayReilly said...
Happy birthday to the UT ......, i still have no net at home so won't be able to attend - but i will be there in spirit in my most audacious and provocative party dress.
(Well done to Montana for keeping the place together another year.)
And good morning Annetan.
18 February, 2011 07:59"
Many happy returns
ReplyDeletedeano30 said...
ReplyDeleteHappy Second Birthday the UT - best wishes to all who sail in her.
Well done Montana - your stamina is much appreciated and admired.
xx.
19 February, 2011 00:07
Belated birthday greetings to Leni! Sorry that I didn't make it on the day.
ReplyDeleteI'm so grateful for another year with you. The page views counter says 398,900 right now, which means that we should also be hitting 400,000 page views today. That just boggles my mind. (And I'm not sure that that even goes back to the beginning -- I think that might just be since 1 July, 2010, when the stats became available.)
@Duke:
I gave up on the broadcast networks as a source of news several years ago. I usually watch Rachel Maddow & Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC, but haven't for about a month. (Long story and I wouldn't want to bore badpenny with it :-) )
However, since I did see your request fairly early in the day (home from work for probably a week. Another story that will bore badpenny -- injured my knee at work on Thursday) I watched MSNBC & CNN for awhile to see how they were covering it and I have to say that they both had fairly balanced coverage in the bits that I saw. One woman hosting a show on MSNBC during the daytime (don't remember what her name was) even struck me as somewhat supportive of the demonstrators.
As for South Dakota -- those people are just fucking insane.
Arizona is considering a change to their gun laws, in the wake of the Tucson shootings. Yeah, that's right. They want to make it easier to carry a gun -- especially in government buildings.
Happy Birthday to UTs!
ReplyDeleteSpecial thanks to Montana for keeping the show on the road and to those who occasionally step in to bung up a thread or rummage through the lost property bins.
I seems both longer and shorter than two years - as it should.
Thanks for having the patience Montana.
ReplyDeleteThis really is a pretty-wonderful site.
I'm glad I found it anyway.
Oh, since I am not much cop at the song business, I'll just make this one an early casualty:
ReplyDeleteMy theme song
Welcome visitors from Austria and Russia
ReplyDeleteIt's now snowing here in E Yorkshire - I'm away to walk the dogs and then a long day of driving.
ReplyDeleteTaking No2 son and partner to Heathrow ....so its a 400+ mile round trip ahead
laters all
BTW - Bitterweed & La Rit may not be able to make it today but they sent best wishes yesterday
Morning all and many happy returns to us!.
ReplyDeleteSnowing here too Deano, in a drizzly way that means lots of slush and no pretty white stuff.
The Terrible Twos
ReplyDeleteA stage in infant development characterised by terrific mood swings, defiance, frustration, negativity, saying no to everything and temper tantrums.
Happy 2nd birthday UT! And a huge thanks to Montana for keeping this place going. Major Bracken can’t make it today unfortunately, but he did ask me to pass on the following:
”The Untrusted- Peddling the agenda of deluded leftism since 2009”
Montana re: Wisconsin,
I do wonder to what extent there will be a bandwagon effect if any. I was reading that North Carolina (the poorest state in the USA according to what I was reading) has also imposed savage cuts as has Minnesota. For millions of Americans, the race to the bottom is already complete and I do wonder when the breaking point will be reached.
HB leni (sorry the wishes are late).
ReplyDeleteHB UT. Have a great day
Happy 2nd birthday to the UT.
ReplyDeleteMany thanks to Montana for keeping it all together.
Just as we were deluded into thinking spring was finally on its way, it snows. The resident blackbird in my garden looks downcast as he hops between the daffodil shoots.
For millions of Americans, the race to the bottom is already complete and I do wonder when the breaking point will be reached.
ReplyDeleteAnd when we resist this despoilation of all hope and reach breaking point, how long before we're facing something like this?
Bahrain's army deliberately kills peaceful protesters with live rounds
Happy Birthday! I enjoy reading the posts and occasionally posting meself, thanks one and all.
ReplyDeleteGood morning, and happy birthday to the UT and all of us who have drifted up here. Many thanks to Montana for the refuge.
ReplyDelete@Duke
There seem to be rumblings in New Jersey as well, where Governor Chris Christie is talking about big pension cuts for public sector workers.
Rusbridger tweets - Barclays admits to 30 subsidiary companies in the Isle of Man, 38 in Jersey and 181 in the Cayman Islands
ReplyDeleteWhilst in 2008 the Guardian's parent company GMG made £300 million in profit and paid zero corporation tax. (According to G. Fawkes)
Sheff,
ReplyDeletethe Bahrainis and Gaddaffi have learnt their lessons from Egypt and Tunisia and appear to be putting the protests down with extreme prejudice.
Ladies and Gents,
who has the coolest moustache here?
How cool does Gregory Peck look? What a Don. I've got to get me one of those suits.
Morning all, and congratulations on two years.
ReplyDeleteAre you, or have you ever been, a tached man yourself, Duke?
ReplyDeleteMorning all!
ReplyDeleteMany Happy Returns to the UT!!
A big thankyou to Montana for giving us fuckwits somewhere warm and dry to hang out, and to any other administrators who pitch in as and when!!
And finally, thanks to everyone who contributes, with witty, passionate, or interesting posts that help make the UT such a gem!!
I may not be around for the party proper, so have a good one, y'all!!!
James
Happy birthday UT! Montana thankyou so much for this site - keeps me sane in this insane world.
ReplyDeletePeter,
ReplyDeleteI’ve done the full beard and goatie but never had the balls just to try the moustache only option. When I played Sunday league football I grew a Danny McGrain effort in the vain hope it would raise my playing standards to the level of the greatest right back British football has produced. No such luck.
If I was to grow a tache, I would go for a Charles Rennie Mackintosh or Robert Louis Stephenson
For some reason, sitting on a porch in Samoa coughing up my consumption ridden lungs as I bang out seminal Victorian novels has an appeal.
And yourself, have you ever been tached?
Wybourne
ReplyDeleteI liked the Gregory Peck pic.
Not much of a mucho mucho moustachio here, - actually more sleazy than anything - but I always thought of Robert Mitchum as one of the Kings of Ultracool.
Morning all
ReplyDeleteHappy Birthday to the UT and a big thankyou to you Montana for keeping it going.You're a diamond x
Atomboy,
ReplyDeleteMitchum would look effortlessly cool even dressed as a clown. He scares the shit out of me in "Night of the Hunter" and the original "Cape Fear" though.
No, Your Grace, I've never been of that persuasion. I get a not shaving rash if I don't shave for about three days. Besides, white hair and black moustache is never a good look.
ReplyDeleteCongrats to UT. Thanks to Montana for maintaining it and the patience of those slung into the spam folder (never happened to me but then that must be because I am purer than the driven snow ;-) ).
ReplyDeleteI have an uneasy feeling about the all the Middle East & Arab (and Iran who are not Arabic I believe) protests. Something will turn out very nasty which ever way it appears to go. Either full on repression or some 'democracy' that will be a puppet of some external power or simply a sham. Ever read 'The Shock Doctrine'? In that book it describes how neoliberals use violent change for their own ends, be it freak weather or political. I have a horrible feeling something like that happening before we realise.
ReplyDeleteCongrats again - love to Montana , Joe and 2 year old Untrusted.
ReplyDeleteIan
ReplyDeleteyou are not alone in your fears - Bahrain already looks like disaster while Libyans are being killed in high numbers.
vested interest protects itself.
Happy birthday to the UT and to Leni yesterday!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Montana, for keeping this site going even when the going gets rough.
Here's a party choon that may or may not be my theme song.
Meanwhile, in today's "Count the Buzzwords" news section:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/big-society-community-organisers-to-get-20000-2219547.html
Big Society community organisers to get £20,000
By Ben Glaze, Press Association
Community organisers in David Cameron's Big Society will be paid £20,000 during their first year, the Government revealed today.
Up to 500 senior organisers will be trained over the next four years, with the cash granted to help them through their initial 12 months.
They will be supported by another 4,500 part-time workers and volunteers.
Civil Society Minister Nick Hurd said today: "The organisers, who will be driven by local communities' needs, will encourage social action and enable individuals to shape the services that matter most to them.
"The Big Society is about empowering people and community organisers will play a key role by giving people a chance to improve the community in which they live."
Big Society advisor Lord Wei said: "Getting well-trained people out into communities to help mobilise and facilitate is an essential step towards delivering the Big Society on the ground.
"This is vital in generating the 'ground-up' approach needed to harness the energy and ideas of individuals and communities."
Meanwhile, the Cabinet Office today announced the body which will train a "neighbourhood army", central to the Prime Minister's plans for the Big Society, will be Locality.
Chief executive Steve Wyler said: "This is an exciting opportunity for everyone, from national Government to local groups and individuals, to work together and help ordinary people achieve extraordinary things and shape the future of their localities.
"We are proud to be selected as the national delivery partner for the programme. As an independent, community-led movement, Locality can draw on the wealth of practical knowledge and experience found across our nationwide network, to ensure community organisers are truly rooted in the needs of their communities."
The organisers will first appear in 10 areas including London, Birmingham, Bristol, Cornwall and Norfolk.
..........
Worth repeating the whole thing, since it is riddled with quotes from creatures who cannot quite manage to speak like ordinary, real people but who can trip and trot out balderdash and claptrap like the best lickspittles and blatherskites anyone could possibly hope to have meddling in and messing up their lives.
The government has refused to say whether a small tax on idiotic gobshites using meaningless soundbite jargon at, say, a pound a word would plug the hole in Broken Britain's finances in about six months.
If you catch one of these prattlers alive, try nailing their tongue to the pavement.
Since I seem to be the only one here, I'll have a little dance all by myself...
ReplyDeleteSlightly lonely and sad
Perhaps I should have stayed in the kitchen with the spilt food and broken glasses:
ReplyDeleteHurt
Correction
ReplyDeleteHi Atom! - I seem to have taken your place! Perhaps I'll tidy up in here ;)
ReplyDeleteAtoms
ReplyDeleteso we are to be accosted, bamboozled and jollied along by community orgainisers to --do what?
Community volunteers are already struggling as funding is cut, community centres increase rents or are closing leaving no community meeting or activity space available.
i think a jargon spouting organiser bobbing cheerfully about telling us how to reinvent the wheel of community activity might get more than a tongue nailed to the pavement.
I wonder if they realise they will come up against people who have spent years volunteering and know how the '3rd sector' and grant funding works ?
Anne
ReplyDeleteAre they closing community centres in Cardiff - suggestion herethat in one ward they will all be closed - provoking anger and anxiety.
We , so far , are keeping ours. Well used by Youth Club (vol run) and playgroup funded by charity. The pensioners have own building - also rentedfrom council.
I had a tache once, in my early twenties. As I had fairly cropped hair at the time, I tended to get mistaken for either a copper or a Friend of Dorothy. I bet Tom Selleck never had these problems.
ReplyDeleteAnne
ReplyDeleteSorry, I was the one who ate all the peanuts and trod on the vol aux vents and made a mess on the floor.
Leni
Strangely, I also think the political shitdribblers and their hyper-fellating commercial bedfellows intent on making a killing from people's misery are also mindlessly sowing the seeds of their own downfall.
Once people see the inevitable numbers of this masterplan and the fact that millions of people are going to suffer for the sake of a few thousand, we will see bankers and tax-fiddlers and politicos wrenched from their glinting limousines and dazzling offices.
They are simply betting on the idea that we will take it lying down.
Once the trouble starts, they will have no idea and no ability to stop it.
They may think it will simply need police with teargas and rubber-bullets to oversee the queues at the municipal soup-kitchens.
The numbers are not going to be on their side.
Sorry - forgot to say that these soundbites and platitudes do not cut a lot of ice when used against visceral, feral rage.
ReplyDeleteHank has been right to talk about anger.
Imagine Cameron or Clegg, with their little pink chubby faces up against someone spitting and thrusting and contorted with rage and blind hatred.
Somehow, they do not create the impression of being credible people, even in their natural milieu of office equipment sales.
Clegg, when facing about twenty students in a choreographed discussion, looked queasy and in need of a fresh pair of underpants.
They need their fucking smug faces ripped off.
Atoms
ReplyDeletei can imagine the reaction here to a soup kitchen type charity food parcel distribution - particularly when it is understood that the organisers are paid and the food donated freely.
this community - like many others - has a long history of supporting each other through hard times and all have stories about the soup kitchens of the thirties.
One old man told me , when I first came here, that as a child he had stood waiting for the soup - holding a jam jar as he had no cup.
will people be prepared to undergo this humiliation again ?
as numbers increase the force of anger will rise.
Platutudes will not compensate for or cover up the reality for much longer.
@Duke:
ReplyDeleteI certainly hope there's a bandwagon effect. There are very few states that aren't looking at savage cuts. Actually, Minnesota's (Democratic) governor has had the audacity to propose raising taxes on Minnesota's wealthiest in order to avoid cutting essential services.
I think that part of what's going on is that people are waking up to the fact that much of this "economic crisis" and the state budget shortfalls that have been going on for years now are illusions. Corporations have been making record profits while extorting more and more tax breaks from state governments by threatening to relocate. If the wealthy & these corporations were paying their fair share, schoolkids wouldn't be packed 30 or more to a classroom and using 25 year old, out of date textbooks.
As far as moustaches go, I don't generally like them. They tend to look sleazy to me, no matter what the style or how well-groomed they are. That said..... Sigh...
More songs, Vicar?
ReplyDeleteBlimey! I feel like an outcast!
ReplyDeleteClegg, when facing about twenty students in a choreographed discussion, looked queasy and in need of a fresh pair of underpants.
ReplyDeleteYou've hit the nail on the end.Whatever the historical shortcomings of our 'democracy' politicians of old were more at least likely to get on a soapbox and face the public.Nowadays politicans are cossetted by armies of security guards,handpicked audiences,pre-scripted interviews and a media that seems to be increasingly more about setting the agenda for policy making rather than vigourously questioning it.
The above post was for Atomboy.
ReplyDeleteMeant to say...politicians of old were at least more likely......
Paul
ReplyDeleteYes, quite true.
It seemed to start at the 1997 election, when people said that Blair and his henchmen were making what looked like spontaneous "meet and greet" processions through the throngs of filthy people, but it turned out that these were events from which ordinary people had been culled and banished.
Not many months later, you may remember Blair being confronted by a woman at a hospital, where her husband was having a heart operation.
He is clearly stunned that a mere mortal has been allowed to foul the ground so close to his own magnificent presence.
He is clearly speechless. He shrugs and blusters and grins and waves his arms around and is about as uncomfortable as he might be to suddenly find himself having a dump on a lavatory from which he looks up to find that he is being watched by a crowd of people and he is actually in the middle of a shopping-centre.
Obviously, "some bigoted woman" had been stupidly let through the human shield which was there to sequester him from shitbag humanity.
Last election, nobody came round to canvass.
There were just occasional newsletters and leaflets declaring how wonderful each candidate was and promising that they would spend every waking hour working their fingers to the bone for the constituents.
Strangely, I have heard precisely nothing from our MP since.
So, that'll be his tongue nailed to the pavement and his sticky, pilfering hands nailed to the wall.
Evening all
ReplyDeleteHappy Birthday to the Untrusted.
And huge thanks to Montana for keeping this place going - it is much loved and enjoyed by many, gets up the nose of a few (bwahahahahahaha!) and the resident trolls are good value for money too for the most part.
Speaking of resident trolls, someone better call the NSPCC right now because this mother has a ginormous glass of brandy and coke in front of her and intends drinking herself into oblivion this evening. :o)
Very tired but have now signed off hospital duty for a couple of days at least now that my father's partner has taken over the reins, as it were, so I am going to relax, watch shite on TV, gad about irresponsibly on the intarwebs and let off some steam.
One for the MPs
ReplyDeleteSome chap who was on the telly at lunchtime - didn't get who he was, other than he was an Arab commentator of some kind as it was all subtitled with no sound on - summed it up for me with the Big Society when he described it simply as the Coalition pushing the problems of government onto the people.
ReplyDeleteSinging for the revolution
ReplyDeleteEvening...
ReplyDeleteLife in the jungle
This is a video which Hank recommended when I came here after some time incognito in no-mans-land.
ReplyDeleteUplifting
Happy Birthday to the UT. Huge hugs to Montana too for setting up and running such a great site!
ReplyDeleteI will raise a glass a little later to toast the occasion!
Favourite party song.
ReplyDeleteMoustaches - Yeuch! Sorry to anyone who has one but honestly they are not good. Even Robert Redford can't carry one off. Kudos to Gregory Peck though - he even looks cool with a tache!
ReplyDeleteThe other half grew a beard and tache combo recently and when the hair started to hang over his top lip I refused kiss him anymore. It's gone now thank the lord. I love a few days of growth though has to be said - it kind of highlights a good jawline.
Happy 2nd Birthday UT!
ReplyDeleteMontana has managed to find the most intelligent, wittiest, thought-provoking and warmest of people and kept them together. (That's you lot.)
Even when there was mayhem and disorder, I didn't want to be anywhere else.
So here's to all of you, you make UT what it is.
This may be a bit less of a party popper and more a party pooper but memories sometimes come from nowhere.
ReplyDeleteGood music from Atomboy, PeterJ and Sheff...! And Montana comes in with a rare old bit of funk. I've posted a lot of music in the last year and a bit that I've been here, so I'm going to listen anyone else's...
ReplyDeleteunless you stop... you have been warned. :-)
Right, that's long enough to wait. :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks, Habib.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like I am being kidnapped for a bit.
I will try to escape and come back later.
Atomboy, that's such an incredible song.
ReplyDeleteFor Montana!
ReplyDeleteHello everyone; just signing on with this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKr2n-9p7WM
looks like it's going to be a long night, better open the red wine!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aeQxKdphPc
Some Randy Newman - an all time fave...
ReplyDeleteLouisiana
shit...now I'm on a Randy Newman kick...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Du3WhHrrNgs&feature=related">Political Science
Atomboy:
ReplyDeleteWell, what can I say? What a beautiful record that was!
I meant to say to Leni.... lyrics of the song I posted yesterday were not appropriate, but the loveliness of the song in general and Harriet Wheeler's voice was ;)
btw:
ReplyDeleteHAPPY BIRTHDAY UT'ers! and congrats Monatana....
Let me just add, that my very old friend who werks in ye music biz (after a fashion) had 'connections' for her 40th birthday a few years back.. let's just say she was, literally, the kiss of death to 2 famous musicians who had agreed to play for her .... a story for the next meet up.... ;)
Not much in the party mode I know, but here's some beautiful melancholy from Maher Halabi
ReplyDeleteAtaba Mijana mawal
Atomboy
ReplyDeleteThanks for that Joan Armatrading track.I discovered the album it was on quite recently and it's got some real gems on it as i'm sure you know.
Happy Birthday, UT!
ReplyDeleteThanks for all your work, Montana!
Many happy returns of yesterday, Leni! (sorry)
Something from our Tracy
ReplyDeleteTalkin about a revolution
Perhaps the tables are starting to turn...have to have hope...
Habib
ReplyDeleteNot heavily into Jackie Wilson.Prefer this track to 'higher and higher'.Hope you're feeling ok.
@Is that Charlie lurking from Russia?
Everybody needs some to Love
ReplyDeleteSorry to be a killjoy on saturday night but it's just been reported that so far an estimated 84 anti government protesters have been killed in Libya alone.The UK government has protested although i'm not sure that will make any difference to Gadaffi.When you've been in power as long as he has you tend to think you're invincible..
ReplyDeleteSolomon Burke None of us are free
ReplyDeleteAfter that bit of bad news here's something more upbeat from The Dramatics
ReplyDeletePaul - if anything 84 deaths is an understatement - although its difficult to tell exactly what's going on as the internet has been intermittent and people there have found it difficult to get news out. Still people are managing to tweet and use landlines. The hospital in Benghaz is overun with caualties, has run out of blood and is pleading for donations.
ReplyDeleteHeres some Champion Jack Junkers Blues
ReplyDeleteEvening all - just checking in to see how the party's going - not too badly so far, it seems! Can't play tunes at the mo unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteBB - glad to hear you are off-duty! Enjoy yourself.
Hi sheff
ReplyDeleteSadly i think you're almost certainly right.
heres one for all u UT'ers 'Kosher Face' on you Tube, followed by 'Rock the Casbah' Rachid Taha
ReplyDeleteRachid Taha! now you're talking smtx....
ReplyDeleteYa Rayah
@shelfpixie do you like Ofra Haza? Im Nin 'alu
ReplyDeleteChekhov, Herb Alpert and Joe Jackson, too - you smoothie!
ReplyDeleteAnd Sheff getting pretty damn cool, too.
ReplyDelete@ habib the last muthafukabreathin
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete@ shelfpixie, unofotunately there is no horrific footage of the millions dead in Darfur, and no commentry on the eight Million children that die in Africa and Asia each and every year, What a world,
ReplyDeletePaul - some rather horrific footage of Chadian mercenaries that Gaddafi has been using against the people.
ReplyDeleteCaptured in eastern Lybia
Happy Birthday UT.
ReplyDeleteAnd for a blast from the past, up-on-your feet dancing tune, I give you:
Haysi Fantayzee
@Heyhabib; my sisters used to call me a "Square" when we were kids for liking Herb Alpert.
ReplyDeleteAnyway here's The Doobie Bros:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aeQxKdphPc
Happy Bithday UT! Many thanks to Montana and admins for their efforts.
ReplyDeleteHere's one for Meerkatjie. As you enjoy fine instruments, have some chamber with Corky.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fn-PVCP1rWI&feature=related
Ataba Mijana mawal was a bit good.
ReplyDeleteThen Paul and Sheff bring the music home.
Then the real world interrupts us. It always will.
@Chekhov - like this?
ReplyDeleteThis Guy's in Love with You
or too cheesy?
Just started working my way down the links.Thanks for 'It's Different for Girls' Chekhov. Haven't heard that for ages.
ReplyDeleteShazznotbot! Haysi Fantaysee! I was about thirteen years old when I first saw them on TV. The woman had a fairly profound effect on me.
ReplyDeleteI'm getting past the quick 400 mile dash - horrendous drive down and up the M1 with constant spray off the road.
ReplyDeleteStill all done and dusted and now it's time for red wine food and.......
Can't Party without a little Fats Domino
...anybody want to dance?
This is one of my favourite tracks fromDonny Hathaway
ReplyDelete@Boudican
Sheff's posted a blinder at 21.20.
@Sheff
That 'Junkers Blues' was one classy track.Never heard it before.Cheers for that.
Just got back from Oxford
ReplyDeleteShipman Shipman, where's me gran ???
Back in a bit, stuff to do...
ReplyDelete@Shazz; not heard that version before, good song though, trying to remember who had the hit cover.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile I bagsy a smooch with you to this: (Soft Cell)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbEOgfq3CNc
Excellent, deano!
ReplyDeleteMust trundle off to my pit. I'll leave you with some klezmer
ReplyDeleteTalking of blokes with trumpets - me mam used to love this one
ReplyDeleteJust leave you with this Paul...The sky is crying
ReplyDeletePure class from a living legend; seen her live four times, absolutely fucking awesome.
ReplyDeleteWell at least no one can accuse of not being eclectic in my musical tastes!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2YWFeHmmyc
Have we been melancholy all night? I liked the last three, especially the soft cell.
ReplyDeleteHi Paul. That Junkers Blues was excellent. Heard him before but not lately.
ReplyDeleteBit of Zydeco anyone?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCBCPlXkqAI
...and blokes on clarinets.... brings this to mind
ReplyDelete.....right time for me to eat, and drink some more, and work my way back up thread to listen to the tunes.
Silly fun stuff, from someone I did a play with back in L.A. many moons ago ...
ReplyDeleteJulie Brown
Good stuff, Sheff! Liked the klezmer.
ReplyDeleteBroke
Guca festival in Serbia is good if you like trombones
ReplyDelete@boudican -
ReplyDeleteLovely. How 'bout some Beausoleil to go wi' dat?
and trumpets
ReplyDelete@Deano; beat me to it "Stranger On The Shore"..classic that one!
ReplyDelete@heyhabib - no melancholy here!
ReplyDeleteJulie Brown
Bugger Boudican - I love zydeco...now you've got me dancing!
ReplyDeleteHot Tamale Baby
Time to up the tempo a bit? Here's "Van the Man":
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhNPswAR7Zg
@heyhabib - no melancholy here!
ReplyDeleteJulie Brown, 'Cause I'm a Blonde
If Chekhov's having Dame Shirley Bassey
ReplyDeleteI'm having some Elkie - Pearl's a Singer
and whilst I'm at it a dash of lilac wine
This lady is still touring in her 60's and is still a class act - I saw her live last year.
@chekhov - that's Acker Bilk again - what Van the Man clip did you want to share? Her name is G ... L ... O ... Rrrrrrrrrr ... GLORIA! (that's technically Them but a rousing tune all the same!)
ReplyDeleteOoops; I must have made a pigs ear of the links.
ReplyDeleteWhat a surprize!
Watch this space, I'll have another go.
Hey Atomboy - sorry, but Julie Brown is just waaaaaay funnier than them! I wish I could link to 'The Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun' but the vid got yanked from Utube ages ago. Granted, the song's lyrics are still amazing but it takes the video to make you cry from laughter.
ReplyDeleteI was WRONG! It's baaaaack ....
ReplyDeleteThe Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun
oh, god. Sorry folks, that's the version where she says 'almost split my seams' instead of 'almost wet my jeans' amongst other crimes against comedy.
ReplyDelete*sighs*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6-dp6RkEY8
ReplyDeleteThis should be "Brown Eyed Girl"!
that 4 non blondes takes me back, whosh
ReplyDelete@chekhov - I always did prefer him in The Last Waltz - he was more than a little hot in that!
ReplyDeleteKissing with confidence
ReplyDeleteHey, Mickey!
ReplyDelete@smtx01 - agreed, 4 Non Blondes takes me back a ways, too. Used to sing along at the top of my lungs, driving up the 405 [freeway in L.A.] "what's goin' on?!".
ReplyDeleteNostalgia of that sort easily turns to morbidity at this time of night, thought, so here's another pick-me-up:
The fabulous Danny Elfman and Oingo Boingo
@Atomboy - even better,
ReplyDeleteHey Ricky!
Load of new cables from wikileaks just released - Bahrain and Egypt feature, amongst others
ReplyDeleteCables
Midnight for some, so here we go.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com?v=CHFjjM6mJSs
"It maybe raining but there's a rainbow above you"!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BwOXlGbW6Q
awww, @Boudican - not available. What is it? Not Miles Davis?
ReplyDeleteIf you can top this you're a twat-
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmY-Tpya-9Y&feature=related
@checkhov - nice one. Another freeway drive singalong. And much better than that Linda Ronstadt version - dry is much better than maudlin.
ReplyDeleteSheff - taking ages to load
ReplyDeleteBoudican - link draws a failure notice
World in general - too tired now.
Happy Birthday to UT and all who sail in her.
Night night
@navro - now, who's going to top that and admit to being a twat?!
ReplyDeleteCan I least double down with this?
Boudican
ReplyDeleteThanks for the Zydeco link.That's another new one on me.
@Here's a dance track from Teddy Pendergrass
@Have barely scratched the surface with all these links.Need to get moving!
That was BBKing,SRV and Etta James--Midnight Hour. I probably mistyped link. See, chekhov you're not alone.
ReplyDelete@Shazzbot Top it though.
ReplyDeleteI'm hears for the learnings.
We still do silly here?
@Boudican - like this?
ReplyDeleteClassic line from this song for me: "She's filing her nails while they're dragging the lake"
ReplyDeleteReminds me of Lauren Bacall and Humphry Bogart in one of those movies screen written by Raymond Chandler with Bogart playing the role of Phillip Marlowe.
Which also reminds me of something more contemporary; what happenned to "PhillipaB"?
If anyone on here still posts on "wadya" tell her to get her arse over here pdq!
@navro - nah, not a twat here. :-)
ReplyDeleteYou want silly? The lyrics to this are pretty funny ...
Shazz--That's it! Thanks for the fix.
ReplyDeleteMust be away with dog. Laters.
Shazzbot, you're bitey, aren't you?
ReplyDelete"We still do silly here?"
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't have signed up if "silly" was off the agenda!
I'm a bit new to the Sat night party here ... are we looking for cool credits, or nostalgia perks, or dancing music?
ReplyDeleteOr just funny stuff?
@heyhabib - nope, I'm the same Shazzbot as on t'other place. I'm also shazznotbot but that's some weirdo place I logged into for The Independent's Live Journal. I forgot I had a Google login. So apologies for two personae in this same thread.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sed8IjdXdGk
ReplyDeleteOh bollocks, that link didn't work either..... try this one!
@chekhov - nice one. Elvis Costello is always good for both cool credits *and* nostalgia perks!
ReplyDeleteThat you know what a bitey is, means nothing, you carry on, shazzbot, have fun.
ReplyDelete@Shazzer
ReplyDeleteButt I'm talkin yoonefersaletee
Great song-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VED_c50JVQ
@navro - as for silly, try this ...
ReplyDeleteI've been a Weird Al fan since back in the day when all his parodies were accordian-based - as he got more slick some of the basic humour got lost, but there are still gems if you look for them.
@navro - never heard Akron/Family, got it playing now. Any others you recommend?
ReplyDelete"I'm a bit new to the Sat night party here ... are we looking for cool credits, or nostalgia perks, or dancing music?"
ReplyDeleteDunno really; I was under the impression that anything goes!
"Weird Al" Yankovic had a folk period?
ReplyDeleteI need to get my mind properly fucked.
Oh and Akron/Family are just about the greatest band roaming the Earth.
Alex Harvey Band
ReplyDelete@navro - well, compare:
ReplyDeletethis
with
this
@Paul - great! Thanks for that.
ReplyDeleteOh, how could I forget ? ... I Love Rocky Road
ReplyDelete"So why dontcha buy another half-gallon baby?"
It didn't fuck my mind & Italian food's ok but..
ReplyDeletethere's so much class about=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G2LUTu-tgE
The ever-changing Bowie personae is class?
ReplyDeleteHow 'bout the ultimate in pop reinvention change-off - David Bowie v Madonna? Who'd win? [nothing to do with popularity, just who managed the most, and most different, changes of style in their career]
Stray Cats
ReplyDeleteAtomboy's earlier post got me thinking about this track from Joan Armatrading
ReplyDeleteAnd Sheff thanks for the earlier track from BB et al.Pure class!
ReplyDeleteBB King even.
ReplyDeleteZiggy Stardust/ Aladin Sane was just a class thing then?
ReplyDeleteI thought he just wrote great songs.
Madonna didn't do much.
She sang this though, FINE SONG-
That will be this one-
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHutZXREZ0E
Another class act...
ReplyDeletehttp://w.youtube.com/watch?v=TWMNnVI8Wcg
Atomboy:
ReplyDeleteFOR you...
Deep River
and of course... anyone else who's listening in...
ReplyDeleteclearly no-one is :( x
ReplyDelete