Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

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refitman
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Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by refitman »

Morning all.
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tinyclanger2
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by tinyclanger2 »

Hello Refitman
Hello everybody
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AnatolyKasparov
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by AnatolyKasparov »

Would love to have been a fly on the wall for the "explanatory" phone call from Brussels to the Irish PM yesterday.

"I'm sorry, but we appear to have invoked Article 16 by mistake!" :D
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citizenJA
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by citizenJA »

Good afternoon, everyone.
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citizenJA
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by citizenJA »

AnatolyKasparov wrote:Would love to have been a fly on the wall for the "explanatory" phone call from Brussels to the Irish PM yesterday.

"I'm sorry, but we appear to have invoked Article 16 by mistake!" :D
It’s Friday evening and it turns out the only one in the building was an intern. Who took the difficult decision

We’ve all been there. You meant to reply to Monday’s email about next week’s meeting but you accidentally overrode the NI protocol instead.

The intern wanted to invoke Art. 164 on bathroom brakes and by accident left out the 4

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" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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I quite liked this explanation
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by AnatolyKasparov »

Sounds horribly plausible.
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citizenJA
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by citizenJA »

still here
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by AnatolyKasparov »

Good to hear.

But where has everybody else been?
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citizenJA
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by citizenJA »

Good morning, everyone.
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by AnatolyKasparov »

Anyone about today?
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citizenJA
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by citizenJA »

The bad taste question about Covid that everyone in Westminster is asking
Will the vaccination programme give Boris Johnson’s popularity a shot in the arm?
Andrew Rawnsley
UK media tells lies, misinforms & cultivates divisions between us all
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tinyclanger2
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by tinyclanger2 »

Am here and interested, but find I have little to say about politics at least, having run out of horror.
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tinyclanger2
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by tinyclanger2 »

I do reflect however on the causes and potential antidotes to populism.
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by AnatolyKasparov »

Still shocked that our government behaved relatively sensibly on this occasion tbh.
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tinyclanger2
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by tinyclanger2 »

Is disconcerting that we expect (and thus essentially accept) so little of national leadership these days. Whatever the nation.
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citizenJA
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by citizenJA »

AnatolyKasparov wrote:Still shocked that our government behaved relatively sensibly on this occasion tbh.
They're passed out on the floor
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by AnatolyKasparov »

tinyclanger2 wrote:Is disconcerting that we expect (and thus essentially accept) so little of national leadership these days. Whatever the nation.
This is, of course, undeniably true.
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by Willow904 »

citizenJA wrote:
The bad taste question about Covid that everyone in Westminster is asking
Will the vaccination programme give Boris Johnson’s popularity a shot in the arm?
Andrew Rawnsley
UK media tells lies, misinforms & cultivates divisions between us all
The vaccine rollout does seem to be propping the government up in the opinion polls. Though I do find it strange that they are being rewarded for something that has gone ok but not punished for everything they've messed up. Which makes me think it's got little to do with covid measures as such and everything to do with wanting to support the Tories at some basic, visceral level. I think, basically, that everyone who voted for Brexit is so heavily invested in it being the "right thing" they are having to scrabble around to find any reason they can that Boris and Brexit were the right choice because the alternative is accepting that they've made a huge mistake leading to economic ruin and the worst death rate in Europe. This is what happens when government's aren't held to account by the media for their policies and their choices. "The people", having spoken, now find themselves complicit and thus ultimately in denial of the reality of what the government has done, potentially for a very long time. :(
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RogerOThornhill
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by RogerOThornhill »

Good afternoon. I got engrossed in a bit of local history and the times being as they are, tend to ignore everything else going on. Apart from the Os losing. again.

Meanwhile...

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Otto English
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Cornerstone Barristers expel Jon Holbrook following a number of complaints about his tweets and social media statements. Expect the usual "free speech" outcry.
A nasty piece of work that writes for Spiked. I posted up the other day when Cornerstone asked him to delete the tweet which he obviously refused.

No doubt the usual suspected will be outraged...free speech! cancel culture!
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citizenJA
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by citizenJA »

Awful government, just about the worst it could be.
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by Willow904 »

Conversely, anyone who criticises the government is indirectly criticising those who voted for it, hence Starmer's reluctance to go in hard. If you compare, for instance, with 1987 when the Tories won a landslide majority of 102, when you actually look at votes cast the number of people who voted for Labour or Alliance parties hugely outnumbered those who voted Tory by several million votes. So anyone attacking the government had a very good chance of chiming with the views of a majority of voters. The difficulty this time is that the Tory majority isn't so much a reflection of a split left/liberal, anti-Tory vote as it was back then. Just under half the country have actually got what they wanted - Boris and Brexit. And it could take them quite a while to decide it's not really what they wanted after all. Last time the Tories were undone by a recession that triggered a house price crash. It was sudden, impossible to ignore, hit Tory voters especially hard and was clearly their fault. Brexit, however, is going to be a slow erosion, with uneven impacts and more scope to point blame elsewhere.
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RogerOThornhill
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by RogerOThornhill »

This is interesting...article from India Knight - Stop telling children that lockdown is harmful

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tinyclanger2
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by tinyclanger2 »

Willow904 wrote:
citizenJA wrote:
The bad taste question about Covid that everyone in Westminster is asking
Will the vaccination programme give Boris Johnson’s popularity a shot in the arm?
Andrew Rawnsley
UK media tells lies, misinforms & cultivates divisions between us all
The vaccine rollout does seem to be propping the government up in the opinion polls. Though I do find it strange that they are being rewarded for something that has gone ok but not punished for everything they've messed up. Which makes me think it's got little to do with covid measures as such and everything to do with wanting to support the Tories at some basic, visceral level. I think, basically, that everyone who voted for Brexit is so heavily invested in it being the "right thing" they are having to scrabble around to find any reason they can that Boris and Brexit were the right choice because the alternative is accepting that they've made a huge mistake leading to economic ruin and the worst death rate in Europe. This is what happens when government's aren't held to account by the media for their policies and their choices. "The people", having spoken, now find themselves complicit and thus ultimately in denial of the reality of what the government has done, potentially for a very long time. :(
Even while endeavouring to be cheery, I can't help but totally agree. (which is why I'm thinking more about language than politics at the moment)
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by RogerOThornhill »

Jon Holbrook
@JonHolb
Replying to
@JonHolb
I would like to thank the Free Speech Union, which has given me considerable help and support over the last week. I now intend to repay it with pro bono work for the 'little guy' sacked by the woke tyranny of cancel culture.
@SpeechUnion
11:29 AM · Jan 31, 2021·Twitter Web App
:lol:

Wonder what their success ratio is?

What with Holbrook and that Eton teacher, I'm not sure it's that good...
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by tinyclanger2 »

v sorry to see Captain Tom is in hospital with Covid.
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citizenJA
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by citizenJA »

What about that Steve Baker, huh?
Anyone see him or hear him on Sophy Ridge?
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by Sky'sGoneOut »

Willow904 wrote:Just under half the country have actually got what they wanted - Boris and Brexit. And it could take them quite a while to decide it's not really what they wanted after all. Last time the Tories were undone by a recession that triggered a house price crash. It was sudden, impossible to ignore, hit Tory voters especially hard and was clearly their fault. Brexit, however, is going to be a slow erosion, with uneven impacts and more scope to point blame elsewhere.
Yup. I simply cannot fathom how so many political commentators fail to take brexit voters' loyalty to Johnson into consideration when they puzzle over how well the tories are poliing even after 100,000 deaths.

Trump boasted he could shoot someone in the street and people would still vote for him, Johnson's proved that he could kill thousands of their countrymen through incompetence and negligence and still retain the allegiance of brexit voters.

As you say this is going to take some time to sort itself out, if it ever does. We live in interesting times unfortunately.
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by tinyclanger2 »

yeah, a bit too interesting.
endeavour to remain upbeat, but humanity appears to be completely losing it.
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by tinyclanger2 »

am finding self feeling less than a total generosity of spirit towards those "demonstrating" agains corona measures in various countries.
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by Sky'sGoneOut »

There are times when I wish I was stupid and dishonest enough to blame everyone else when I've made a total arse of myself but that would make me a dick and for me not being a dick is, I think, an important philosophy to follow in life. Obviously at times I fail to live up to this philosophy and as a result experience shame.

This does not make me unique in any way but it does preclude me from ever taking up the challenge of becoming a right wing, anti 'woke' contrarian wanker on Twitter.

Take the utter arsehole Roger has highlighted above.

This pompous, deluded freak has made a name for himself by making a thinly veiled racist attack on a teenage school girl and is now claiming to be the victim after being fired by his employers presumably because they think his behaviour was repugnant and reflects badly on their legal practice. Not only that, but in an act of craven cowardice he refuses to engage with the mother of the girl he cynically abused to propel himself into the spotlight. Instead he's playing the martyr using a word salad of alt-right catchphrases, delusional self aggrandisement and shameless self promotion.

Now if that was me and I woke up after a week long drink and drug fuelled bender to find I done something similar my first thought would probably be suicide. My family would disown me, my friends would hate me and I'd hate myself. Not just because I'd behaved like a dick, but because everying I'd said had been stupid.

Let's take a single example because I'm fully aware this rant is already too long.

He claims to be a victim of a 'cancel culture' being perpetrated by 'progressives', a common theme amongst whingeing right wing snowflakes both sides of the Atlantic. But in both the U.K and the U.S the right are perfectly happy to silence their critics or refuse them a platform. Witness Boris Johnson refusing repeatedly to meet the families of Covid victims or Republicans campaigning against other Republicans for not being loyal to their orange god. Being fired from your job for attacking a teenage girl because of her race is not being 'cancelled' it's facing the consequences of behaving like a piece of human garbage and getting off lightly. If a 'progressive' like me had his way I'd strap him down and give her a cattle prod to play with.

Anyway I think you get my drift, I'll stop now for all our sakes.
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by RogerOThornhill »

re ^^^

Back in the days there used to be things called politeness, tact, respect for others - they seem to be old-fashioned things these days.

The worst my mum would ever say of anyone was "Ah, she means well..."
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by gilsey »

David Henig
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Thinks. For all the complex analysis of why the UK has done so well on vaccinations to date, could a simpler reason be a PM always in favour of big and quick spending on projects finally finding one where that was the right answer?
Yes, imo.

Similarly, you can criticise Kate Bingham's appointment on crony grounds but that doesn't preclude the possibility that she was a good fit for the job.
Being able to throw money at it makes the job easier of course, but that doesn't seem to help hapless Harding.
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by citizenJA »

Cooker broke
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by citizenJA »

@Sky'sGoneOut
thank you
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by PorFavor »

gilsey wrote:
David Henig
@DavidHenigUK
Thinks. For all the complex analysis of why the UK has done so well on vaccinations to date, could a simpler reason be a PM always in favour of big and quick spending on projects finally finding one where that was the right answer?
Yes, imo.

Similarly, you can criticise Kate Bingham's appointment on crony grounds but that doesn't preclude the possibility that she was a good fit for the job.
Being able to throw money at it makes the job easier of course, but that doesn't seem to help hapless Harding.
I heard Kate Bingham being interviewed and had a grudging respect for her. Dido Harding doesn't even bother to get information from the experts she is presumably surrounded by. At least Kate Bingham has an appreciation of what is required of her and has the good sense to marshall the people who do have the expertise. A thing that actual Government Ministers don't or won't do any more.
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by gilsey »

Willow904 wrote: The vaccine rollout does seem to be propping the government up in the opinion polls.
I'm tending towards thinking that neither the appalling death toll nor the success of the vaccination drive, if success it turns out to be, will be all that significant in 2024.

There's a long, long road of economic decline to be travelled in this country and AFAICS the tories don't even want to do anything about it.
The economy is a dead issue atm but that will change.
Starmer and Labour will have to buck their ideas up to get anything out of it though.
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by PorFavor »

Michael Spicer
@MrMichaelSpicer
·
28 Jan
Fun lockdown tip: Mount a landline phone on the wall next to your bathroom mirror and pretend you're visiting your twin in jail.
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by gilsey »

This is what prompted my thought about the current lack of interest in economics.

THE DEATH OF ECONOMIC POLICY

He makes this very good point
many important issues can be addressed without policies to raise general economic growth – such as food poverty, the housing crisis or climate change.
but as we know, these are things the tories definitely aren't going to address.

Without general economic growth the tories have nothing at all.
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by citizenJA »

Goodnight, everyone.
love,
cJA
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Sky'sGoneOut
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by Sky'sGoneOut »

RogerOThornhill wrote:re ^^^

Back in the days there used to be things called politeness, tact, respect for others - they seem to be old-fashioned things these days.

The worst my mum would ever say of anyone was "Ah, she means well..."
The only time I ever heard my Mum swear was when I made her watch Silent Running and at the end she looked at me and said 'you bastard'. I think I was 12.

I support a Scottish football team who've spent their entire existence in the lower or non leagues so as you can imagine the crowds are small. In such an enviroment you know if you shout something out during the game everyone is going to hear you. You can aim for witty to try to get a laugh or something about the tactics to get a murmur of approval but if someone starts shouting mindless abuse at a player or even the opposition they get told to shut up and if they don't stop they'll be kicked out. It's a lot harder to be a lone dickhead in a small crowd of a couple of hundred people than it is in a premier league stadium where you're surrounded by thousands and hundreds of them are your fellow dickheads.

So I guess Twitter/Facebook are the big stadiums and we're non league.

I'm off to get a bovril and a ticket for the half time raffle.
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by refitman »

Sky'sGoneOut wrote:There are times when I wish I was stupid and dishonest enough to blame everyone else when I've made a total arse of myself but that would make me a dick and for me not being a dick is, I think, an important philosophy to follow in life. Obviously at times I fail to live up to this philosophy and as a result experience shame.

This does not make me unique in any way but it does preclude me from ever taking up the challenge of becoming a right wing, anti 'woke' contrarian wanker on Twitter.

Take the utter arsehole Roger has highlighted above.

This pompous, deluded freak has made a name for himself by making a thinly veiled racist attack on a teenage school girl and is now claiming to be the victim after being fired by his employers presumably because they think his behaviour was repugnant and reflects badly on their legal practice. Not only that, but in an act of craven cowardice he refuses to engage with the mother of the girl he cynically abused to propel himself into the spotlight. Instead he's playing the martyr using a word salad of alt-right catchphrases, delusional self aggrandisement and shameless self promotion.

Now if that was me and I woke up after a week long drink and drug fuelled bender to find I done something similar my first thought would probably be suicide. My family would disown me, my friends would hate me and I'd hate myself. Not just because I'd behaved like a dick, but because everying I'd said had been stupid.

Let's take a single example because I'm fully aware this rant is already too long.

He claims to be a victim of a 'cancel culture' being perpetrated by 'progressives', a common theme amongst whingeing right wing snowflakes both sides of the Atlantic. But in both the U.K and the U.S the right are perfectly happy to silence their critics or refuse them a platform. Witness Boris Johnson refusing repeatedly to meet the families of Covid victims or Republicans campaigning against other Republicans for not being loyal to their orange god. Being fired from your job for attacking a teenage girl because of her race is not being 'cancelled' it's facing the consequences of behaving like a piece of human garbage and getting off lightly. If a 'progressive' like me had his way I'd strap him down and give her a cattle prod to play with.

Anyway I think you get my drift, I'll stop now for all our sakes.
"Help, help, I'm being cancelled" I scream, from my article in The Critic, Conservative Home, my column on Spiked Online and my Twitter account, "no-one will hear my words." :toss: :toss:
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by tinyclanger2 »

I'm developing a fervent dislike for the new language. "Cancelled" went straight to the top of the list.
It's basically like listening to a bunch of particularly ill-informed youths having a bit of a barney. Except that they're the people in charge of the world with simultaneous climate, pandemic, post-truth and economic disasters to deal with.
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by tinyclanger2 »

I have often taken measures to avoid some aspects of reality given the latter's irritating habit of failing to align with my wishes. But I never went so far as to pretend it didn't exist.
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by Sky'sGoneOut »

There is only one economic policy the Tories need to worry about at the moment and it's keeping the housing bubble going.

Brexiters won't care if we have to pay an extra couple of quid for a bottle of wine or some good cheese, they won't care about national debt as a percentage of GDP, they'll only care when their houses start depreciating in value.

I'm reading a book about France at the moment and apparently in the 19'th C it was commonplace amongst all classes to work in the city during the week then go to a tiny one room house you maintained at the weekends out on the hillsides or surrounding lands where you kept a table and some chairs and musical instruments to entertain yourselves and visitors. These were tax exempt for the public good. A Russian visitor to Marseilles described the sight of an empty city at the weekend surrounded by thousands of tiny lights all over the surrounding hills.

Imagine that.
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by Sky'sGoneOut »

tinyclanger2 wrote:I'm developing a fervent dislike for the new language. "Cancelled" went straight to the top of the list.
It's basically like listening to a bunch of particularly ill-informed youths having a bit of a barney. Except that they're the people in charge of the world with simultaneous climate, pandemic, post-truth and economic disasters to deal with.
At least you aren't Greek.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... lish-terms
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by Sky'sGoneOut »

tinyclanger2 wrote:I have often taken measures to avoid some aspects of reality given the latter's irritating habit of failing to align with my wishes. But I never went so far as to pretend it didn't exist.
That my friend is wonderful. And yes we all avoid stuff we don't like and indulge in escapism of one sort or another. I've had arguments with mental health therapists about the merits of such behaviour. They all think avoidance is bad, whereas I think it's a perfectly natural aspect of human nature.

As for denying reality, history shows it's the default position for most of humanity.
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by PorFavor »

Avoidance and escapism are necessary and are sometimes the only things that equip us to carry on. But I believe that you have to have accepted reality, if only briefly and it given a nod to in the back of your mind, in order for the escapism or avoidance to be of value. A hook to hang things on, however much only glimpsed occasionally or unenthusiastically. Otherwise, the whole world is rooted in fantasy which would make day-to-day survival in the real world a practical impossibility for most people. Avoidance and escapisim are certainly not bad.
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by Sky'sGoneOut »

How then do you account for religion?
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Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by PorFavor »

My latest book, entitled For the Avoidance of Escapism, is now available in paperback.
PorFavor
Prime Minister
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Joined: Tue 26 Aug, 2014 12:18 pm

Re: Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st January 2021

Post by PorFavor »

Sky'sGoneOut wrote:How then do you account for religion?
I bloody knew you'd ask that! It flitted across my mind as I pressed "Send".
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