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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9717997/French-bank-governor-Christian-Noyer-calls-for-City-of-London-to-be-sidelined-as-Europes-financial-hub.html
“London should be stripped of its status as Europe’s main financial hub and sidelined to allow the eurozone to “control” transactions within the 17-nation bloc, the governor of the Bank of France has said.”
Molon labe!
Malfleur
December 3rd, 2012 – 09:08
A hint to keep the City pro-EU and see they fund the right people.
The BBC report with glee this morning that yet more new criminal offences come into force today including various statutory punishments for “aggravated” offences and for re-offending.
From the Coalition agreement:-
“We will introduce a new mechanism to prevent the proliferation of unnecessary new criminal offences.”
I am now expecting to see within my lifetime the offence of “saying or writing something that somebody doesn’t like” with an “aggravated” offence if the dastardly perpetrator is right-wing.
The Labour opposition party is taking it upon itself, presumably bolstered by the petition signatures of a hundred thousand or so very silly people and a few daft celebrity socialists, to draft its own legislation to control and muzzle the free press on behalf of the “public” (that presumption again). The sheer arrogance of this speaks for itself. A party that believes in its (secular) Divine Right to Power, so much so that it appears to spend its whole time not just providing HM Loyal Opposition but rather trying to usurp the elected government and to bring it down, aided and abetted by the subverted and suborned public sector and quangocracy.
We are well on track for a one party state and East Germany. This morning I shall be exploring alternative countries in which to spend my last years so that I no longer have to endure the tedious, freedom suffocating and moronic clamour of British socialism.
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2012/12/common-sense-gives-way-to-common-purpose.html#more
This comment in the Telegraph illustrates perfectly the real imperative behind this press-muzzling initiative by Labour and its confederates:-
“The printed press have nothing to fear if they report properly and accurately. Both the Telegraph and the Daily Mail do not accurately report facts as found by Leveson, but are simply propoganda for the conservative party. That is why they have lobbied Cameron so hard. It is a further example of the abuse of power that they have been allowed to do so. Trust Leveson. You cannot trust Cameron or the Press. Sign the petition. Stop buying the printed media. Rely on the regulated press BBC, ITV and SKY.”
Beyond belief considering it was the Guardian’s claims about the deletion of voicemails that were false. These people must inhabit an alternative reality. I’m sure the clown who wrote the comment is one of the nasty socialist trolls staining the other place too.
Malfleur 10:46 the presence of the police officer at the internal dismissal hearing is mind boggling and really does deserve to be more widely disseminated and fully investigated. Especially as when challenged by the lawyer it was acknowledged that he had no right to be there. So why was he?
Ironic that the values the council felt he did not share with theirs involved Civil Liberties. Says it all. No wonder they are trying to muzzle the press.
We all face tyranny in Britain from unelected and unaccountable socialist conspiracy bureaucrats, unfortunately some people have already experienced their persecution.
Malfleur
December 3rd, 2012 – 09:08
Re: Sidelining London as Europe’s financial centre
Good. We are not just Europe’s financial centre, we are also the world’s financial hub. We have investments from far more serious countries than France to worry about.
So good, let the Euros F-off, red tape and all, and we can start trading more seriously with the emerging markets and America.
This Labourite Watson appears to need his wings clipping:-
http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/andrew-neil-stays-quiet-over-spectator-editors-threat-8375858.html
He comes across as a bully.
Malfleur
December 3rd, 2012 – 09:08
And how in this day and age does he suggest this monopoly is achieved? I hope we don’t actually pay him a salary for this type of comment.
Malfleur
December 3rd, 2012 – 10:46
Local authorities seem to think they can impose political conformity on both their staff and others such as the foster parents in Rotherham. If we let the cases drop then they will have succeeded.
Noa
To continue our conversation on optimism/reality/prognostication: a paragraph in yours of 18:53 yesterday –
“So far in the history of the world no dictatorship has lasted forever. And at least we have the recent example of the collapse of the USSR and communism to keep our spirits up. I’m sure hundreds of millions trapped within it thought that it would never end, despite that they continued with their efforts to do so. the depressing thing is that many of those freedoms gained in 1990 seem to have slipped away so quickly.”
– is addressed to some degree by Alex Boot today in his post about a death caused by either unhealthy exercise, or by previous business partnerships gone wrong:
http://alexanderboot.com/content/surrey-jogger-could-run-he-couldn%E2%80%99t-hide
I can remember saying to an American counterpart of mine back in 1990, when first the ‘Curtain’ was drawn back, then the Wall was demolished, “WTF are the crafty Bastards up to now – I think the world is about to become a much more dangerous place.” He decried my cynicism. He was a clever lawyer-cop who had, with others, been responsible for banging up the godfathers of the Cleveland Mafia when Cosa Nostra’s empire began to seriously crumble nationwide as ‘omerta’ became ‘schmerta’.
“ … collapse of the USSR and communism …” ? Or its transmogrification into something worse? “ … freedoms gained … slipped away so quickly?“ Or smoke and mirrors from the outset? Still agree with the last para of that post though. Hope springs eternal …
But, Alex says it all as far as Russia is concerned – and Cosa Nostra? Just another transmogrification through ‘legitimate’ business; in other words their main rackets have been largely embraced by governments and taxed – booze; broads; drugs; gambling; loan-sharking and – vide Mr Boot, contract killing.
Just sayin’.
Notwithstanding the gloomy picture geopolitics and legitimised crime, today is a special day; our youngest daughter is 49 today, it seems only yesterday that she made her first appearance in 1963 to join her three siblings. The trial of Nelson Mandela for treason began that day; Roy James was arrested for his part in The Great Train Robbery; the world was still abuzz from the aftermath of Kennedy’s assassination and the song “She Loves you” was making four gauche Liverpool prats (and their morose manager) rich and famous (I’ve never understood why). My daughter is just as beautiful today as she was that Christmastide – and is now a grandmother herself. We have a duty to be optimistic. But doesn’t that duty becomes more difficult by the hour?
At breakfast this morning I was bemoaning some item on the news (for the life of me I can’t remember just what it was) when she who must be obeyed made the comment “the cause of almost every problem lies within Europe” and she is right.
Almost everything that is causing us our loss of freedom stems from the ever corrupt EUSSR, we are no longer a free people, we do not live in a democracy, and all notions of nationhood and being a sovereign state are but an illusion.
All of our local and national institutions are festering suppurating dens of corruption,
the houses of Commons and Lords are, sadly, prime examples, hiding under the guise of honest public servants they rob us through corrupt manipulation of expenses and allowances, whilst at the same time stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the wishes and opinions of the people.
I suspect that a majority would wish to leave the EU, to opt out of the European Court of human rights, a majority might well be persuaded to eject the Scots from the UK.
I am sure that a strict decision to repatriate all foreigners and their families when and if they are found guilty of crime, would find favour with the public.
The vast majority would support an end to all wind-farm subsidies for past and future builds thus ensuring the end of new builds and speeding up the removal of all of the rest.
The government would find that few would object to the shutting down of all of the quangos, all without question a total waste of money but all home and income sources for those who live off of these pretend organisations.
The BBC exemplified by the last Director General and the current Chairman is not fit for purpose and has not been for many a year it should be dismantled piece by piece, until it can once again replicate the standards bequeathed to it by Lord Reith.
PS.
I also would suggest that we are offered a referenda every ten years on whether child murderers, police slayers and serial killers should hang by the neck until dead.
Re mine at 14:14, emendation – lest my youngest gal gets to read this (doubtful … but!);
“… to join her three siblings” should have read … to join her two sister siblings and later to herald our only son”.
Another senior moment, compacted chronology one of the symptoms.
Every night; every morning, I sit down at the computer and say ‘I am not going to post on the CHW this time because whenever I do I am usually merely moaning and grumbling and don’t come up with any original ideas. I will keep quiet for a bit and see what others have to say’….
The Camel Corps,we learned today, in tandem with its its noble equivalent in the Quai d’Orsay, is threatening to recall its Ambassador to Israel because of the position of the Israeli government on “settlements” in the “occupied territories”. The Ambassador, a slippery character appointed by the Queen on the advice of Mr. Slippery himself on the advice of said camel riders, is the notorious Mr. Mathew Gould en poste – for no good reason that reasonable man can identify – in Tel Aviv rather than Israel’s capital, Jerusalem. As was noted on this site at the time, and as Wikipedia records, Mr. Gould said in an interview in August this year “Israelis might wake up in 10 years time and find out that suddenly the international community has changed, and that patience for continuing the status quo has reduced.”
Where Britain is concerned, this craven, disreputable and but vaguely founded policy seems to have been implemented nine years and eight months earlier than Her Majesty’s Ambassador anticipated.
On a number of occasions at the OP, I proposed to “Patriccia Shaw” a debate on the “settlements” and whether they were illegal or not. “She” always refused or fell silent. David M. Phillips addressed the legal aspects of this question in 2009 at:
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/the-illegal-settlements-myth/
I must warn you though that Commentary Magazine” is a largely Jewish effort and for many years proudly noted on its cover that it was a publication of the “American Jewish Committee”. I am not privy to why they decided a few short years ago to remove that. Suffice it to say, as a notorious mouthpiece of Zionist.Nazi propaganda, not one word that this magazine prints is to be believed. However, it is difficult to find anything contrary to the accepted view that the “settlements” are illegal . I adduce this grossly biased analysis of the legal position as the best argument on offer.
And Commentary Magazine, shamelessly in the face of the opposition of pretty much of the rest of the world, here again in an article by Jonathan S. Tobin as recent as 2nd December -Yesterday for God’s sake! – as though nothing has been learnt by these people in the interim, are set out reasons, glibly convincing on the surface, why allegations that “settlements” are illegal are as full of rubbish as the smoking garbage mountain of Metro Manila:
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/12/02/israels-settlements-and-the-europeans-un-vote/
I sit puzzling so many days at the reasons for the opposition to Israel and its tiny population, and none that I can come up are arguments supported by history, let alone redound to the ethical or spiritual credit of any of Israel’s opponents,. Are these people mad; am I? Is my government so deeply cynical and bereft of principle, so easily swayed by the dark forces that dominate the “United Nations”, and so bought out, sold and owned, that even where there is no apparent national interest at stake, and where to the contrary there is a developing existential threat to the British nation from extreme islam, Mr. Slippery and his Coalition with the sinister, silent approbation of the “people’s party” on the Opposition benches, still cannot firm its back and stretch its legs to stand up for a small democracy surrounded by raving savages? A rhetorical question, I fear.
With regard to the French, the picture is nothing like as puzzling. David Pryce-Jones,whose professional background is briefly summarised at the following link, addressed the Middle East Forum in November 2006 and identified the French as the disruptive factor in European diplomacy whose position threatened prevents a unified front from being presented to the islamic threat. Pryce-Jones believes that the French have a fantasy which dates back to the time of Napoleon III that they are a muslim power which idea “ran contrary to centuries of France billing itself as a Christian power” but had France believe that it can “take advantage of Arabs and the Muslims and incorporate them into its imperial designs” while the Jews “cannot act independently; they are the pawns of a hostile external power which varies along with the circumstances, be it the British, the Germans, or the Russians” .
http://www.meforum.org/1636/betrayal-france-the-arabs-and-the-jews
It seems that the British government is signing up to this Franco-fantasy while only a handful; of countries, such as the Czech Republic, seem to have kept their heads, their rationality, their sense of fair play, and their recognition of freedom’s real enemies.
“Lives will be saved by new internet powers allowing security services and police to snoop on emails, web visits and social networking sites, Home Secretary Theresa May has said. Under the proposals, internet providers and other information service providers will be required to retain records of all communications, to which police and security services will have access, for 12 months. The powers will help to tackle serious organised crime and help police track paedophiles, terrorists and criminals, she told The Sun. She said: “People who say they are against this bill need to look victims of serious crime, terrorism and child sex offences in the eye and tell them why they’re not prepared to give the police the powers they need to protect the public. Anybody who is against this bill is putting politics before people’s lives. We would certainly see criminals going free as a result of this.” She added that the bill is not a “snoopers’ charter”. “It is absolutely not government wanting to read everybody’s emails – we will not be looking at every web page everybody has looked at.” Police, the security services, the new National Crime Agency and HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) will be able to access the data, but the draft Communications Data Bill also gives the Home Secretary the power to extend access to others, such as the UKBA.
Coalition agreement:-
“We will end the storage of internet and email records without good reason.”
Imagine, if during the height of the Northern Ireland troubles, when the mainland was actually being regularly bombed by terrorists, the government had proposed that everyone’s letters were going to be photocopied by the Post Office and kept for 12 months just in case the police needed to look at them.
This is a classic case of because they can they will – with lots of dog-whistling and emotional blackmail so typical of today’s politicians. If you dare speak up against it you must be a bad person, supporting criminals – so better keep quiet.
David Ossitt (14:26)
There a great manifesto contained in your comment; run it past your local Tory Party Chairman for onward transmission to No’s 10/11.
Well-wisher (14:40)
Given that I wouldn’t trust the current coalition with such powers, or even a ‘conservative’ government under Cameron (in the very unlikely event of a Tory victory in 2015), the thought of May organising those powers for the almost certain eventuality of a New New Labour Government instead, under the donkey-headed spawn of a Marxist apparatchik, is blood curdling. If such powers can be abused, they will find excuses for so doing. Even the shortest memory span is capable of understanding that, surely?
Frank
Indeed. I think the balance has long been tipped between imposition on our traditional freedom and privacy as individuals and the idea that criminals must be discovered at any cost. The majority imposed on for the sins of the minority yet again. Nothing to hide nothing to fear etc. That logic would see us all tagged and monitored 24/7 with CCTV inside our houses. After all if we have nothing to hide . . .
Also, I think that there is a distinction to be made between criminals in the sense of the old common law and “those the state might wish to criminalise” in future. Especially as the output of more and more criminal law and regulation appears to be on the scale of projectile vomiting from both Westminster and Brussels.
There must come a point surely, that having drilled down to all possible minutiae in their drive to tailor criminal law to every possible infringement or possibility of escape from conviction there is no further to go. Or will we start to see the gradual criminalisation of “unacceptable behaviour”, “impure thoughts”, “raising our voices”, “expressing anger”, “wasting electricity or other public commodity”, “looking at a government official in a defiant manner”, “clenching fists and sucking teeth in a government office”, “criticising the EU” (that one already proposed and on the way I believe), various “denials” such as climate change and of course multiple “phobias”, etc.?
The intimidatory use of emotional blackmail and the suggestion that dissent is almost criminal by itself really disgusts and concerns me. It goes way beyond policing by consent because it is so coercive and manipulative. It treats the whole of society as potentially criminal and not to be trusted as adults or respected as individuals.
But the truly incredible thing is that this Coalition promised the exact opposite of this nonsense and we have a party calling themselves the “Liberal Democrats” in office.
Malfleur (14:40)
I popped across to Melanie’s page to see what she has to say about Hague’s posturing on the Israeli settlements; nothing so far. But her essay on Cyclists today is a witty rant, of which even Austin Barry would be proud. Perhaps she’s just limbering up on her static bike before hitting the keyboard in a muck sweat and subjecting the Camel Corps to one of her periodical pastings.
Btw – I’ve read you post twice and I’m still puzzled. Are you for or agin Israel building more settlements as a strategy in their existential struggle? What is “Zionist.Nazi propaganda” (was the irony mode on there?) Is that your assessment, or are you quoting?
I am not an economist, but it appears to me that British society has become a jealous society, resentful of any individual or any organisation which actually makes a profit in these hard times. An example is the wrath Amazon brings down by those who believe it is a parasite feeding off the body Britannia. Actually, the situation is far more like symbiosis, in that there are gains to be made by both Britain and Amazon. As I see it, and I repeat I am most certainly no economist, the Royal Mail, to name one delivery service, must be making a very good profit from delivering Amazon orders. Then there are the warehouses, staffed by people here, and the suppliers of packaging materials, and all other mundane items needed in the ‘catalogue retail’ trade. It seems that whenever profits are seen to be made, hackles rise, and the Bolshies hidden beneath more civilised masks gnash their teeth and reveal pure envy.
Anne, if materialism is the dominant philosophy then it is easy for society to become focused on things and wealth. Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you die. And if others have more than you feel bad about it because that could be you.
Nothing in the UK is surprising. This is the sort of society you get when the Judeo-Christian roots are undermined (in terms of culture, not necessarily in terms of faith). The sort of agnosticism which is popular now excuses all vices rather than being a prompt for virtue. Much of the atheism we see (not all, and not directed at any here) seems to be very much concerned with the Judeo-Christian and just can’t let go of it, and so wishes to destroy it.
A society that wants it all and wants it now looks like this. Changing a few policies here and there will make little difference. Something more is required.
Peter from Maidstone (19:41)
“The sort of agnosticism which is popular now excuses all vices rather than being a prompt for virtue.”
Agnosticism merely means to keep an open mind about whether there is a first cause – which we cannot possibly know for sure, given humanity’s current lack of knowledge of the Universe – a word that in any case may ultimately mean nothing if we stick around long enough as a species to discover the secrets of everything; what has that got to do with excusing all vices, rather than being a prompt for virtue?
Just because someone declines to accept the dogma of men dressed up in ornate paraphernalia, it does not mean that they are either not virtuous or indeed vicious. They may merely be admitting to their limitations. Why insist on people ‘believing’ what hey cannot possible know, or decrying them as immoral because they not follow your beliefs?
I abhor the envy that Anne describes as much as you do. I have met many professing religionists who are not immune to the green eyed monster; and the edifice of the Roman Catholic Church, has been to my certain knowledge, a whited sepulchre throughout my lifetime and, I suspect, long before that.
A nice pithy quote from the judge tonight”
“Every tyrant of the 20th Century took two things they fear the most from the populace—guns and gold.”
Judge Andrew Napolitano (@Judgenap)
“Is everyone in the United States under government surveillance?”
http://thelibertarianrepublic.com/is-everyone-in-the-united-states-under-government-surveillance/
An interesting, startling, RT interview with William Binney.
(h/t @Judgenap)
Fitting in neatly with the above:
“Remember when the Tories were against the surveillance state?”
http://www.atangledweb.org/?p=37613
Another blogger for freedom with some recommendations of his own:
http://autonomousmind.wordpress.com/2012/12/03/5-star-blogging-93/
Some interesting reading in all that lot, chaps.
“Perhaps people would do well to remember that a government big enough to give you what you want is a government big enough to take from you all you have.”
http://autonomousmind.wordpress.com/2012/12/03/having-damaged-our-economy-the-politicians-ramp-up-their-cash-grab-extortion-racket/
Frank P, I have met plenty of agnostics who are not ‘keeping an open mind’ at all in the sense you suggest. I think you are being too sensitive and assuming that there is a religious community of Agnostics which is being impugned. There is certainly a type of agnosticism which excuses vice by the vague acceptance that there is a deity of some sort who will probably not be too annoyed at all manner of sin.
I think that you are over stating the agnosticism of the majority of people, and it is in their case used as an excuse for vice. There are certainly religious people who do not have any meaningful Christian faith either. They are also essentially agnostics and also excuse themselves by a vague deference which is no more than deism.
There may well be serious agnostics. I wasn’t referencing them.
Where I have said all people are immoral for not being true Christians? I didn’t. You are reading that into my post.
It seems a fact to me that there is a sort of agnosticism now which excuses vice. I have met it very often among all those who live exactly as they please and hope that a vague acceptance that there might be a God will be enough.
Frank P @ 21.07
“Just because someone declines to accept the dogma of men dressed up in ornate paraphernalia, it does not mean that they are either not virtuous or indeed vicious.”
I support your defence of those from either side of the moral barricade who resist the politically correct police service.
I am not at all convinced that someone who is not a believer in the Judeo-Christian God can be virtuous.
I don’t mean that they can’t do things which I would consider good, and be the sort of people that I would call kind. But I can only say that in reference to the measure of virtue provided by God. If there is no God then I don’t see how the words virtue and vice have any meaning at all.
(Again that is not a criticism of people who are not Jews/Christians, and who I do indeed think are good).
But on what basis is it wrong for any of the things we complain about nowadays to take place if there is no God? It doesn’t make sense. If someone is only going to live for 70 years and then be dead why shouldn’t he seek to exploit others as much as he can get away with. How is that bad if there is no absolute measure. Indeed according to evolutionary thinking it would be right and proper.
I don’t doubt at all that there are many people doing good things, and many of them are on this site, but I don’t see how anyone who is not properly a believer in God – not the vague religiosity that passes for faith – can speak of virtue. In evolution there is no such thing as virtue. And even doing good for the sake of some meta-genetic benefit is not virtue it is just animal behaviour.
I am not saying that all or many Christians live virtuous lives, this is not what I am wondering about at all, but I am wondering how someone who believes that humans are just animals who live only 70 years and then die and that is it, can speak of virtue in anything like the sense in which a Judeo-Christian intends it. Morality and social norms, yes of course. But morality is not virtue.
EC @21:13
I am a fan of Judge Nap. I have a second-hand copy of his book published in 2006 which I dip into from time to time until my blood pressure gets too high: “The Constitution in Exile: How the Federal Government Has Seized Power by Rewriting the Supreme Law of the Land”.
Doesn’t all government end up rewriting things to grant itself more power? Even when there is nothing written down?
Mr. Boot is insistent that our government worked best when it found power shared among the various estates which were properly divided so that no one estate could act without balance. Now we do only have the executive and both parliament and the lords are in effect powerless. We need to develop new means of countering the power of the executive so that it cannot act as it pleases. Perhaps this is an area for direct democracy, not to allow all activity to take place, but to allow particular activities to be halted when they create too great a pressure from the electorate.
EC – interesting links, thank you.
Having grown up with The Troubles of N. Ireland woven into me, I’m very aware that the hair-trigger sensitivities of such a situation were never reflected or understood by the media, and that the general narrative mostly ignored its most glaring self-contradictions. McGuinness et al happily and hatefully blowing people to pieces under the pretext of social justice in a tiny country where the average wage of even the so-called privileged protestants was about 65% of that on the mainland. Imagine a civil sectarian war in Norfolk to get an idea of how exaggerated grievances were.
And I’m sure the same applies in terms of local knowledge to the Israel situation. Without doing a David Lindsay and spewing on for hours, there is one observation which I wish some proper journalist would pose to the usual suspects and it is this: How come those who get so indignant (falsely) and outraged (exaggeratedly) about Israel building settlements in the West bank, seem to be equally and oppositely delighted with all the settlements built by millions of foreign aliens with absolutely no land rights at all here in the UK?
These sanctimonious oh-so-superior Lefties have not got the slightest clue what the phrase ‘being in The Last Ditch’ actually means.
Peter.
Hmmm. I quoted the assertion with which I take issue. Seems to me that you are trying to fill the void of agnosticism with what you you believe to be there, in the same way that you try to assign what we cannot know with meaning that may not be there either. Do that if you wish, on both counts, but we’ll have to agree not to agree. Atheism is a different matter. I’m not that brave yet, and probably never will be. I say to atheists the same as I say to believers. Show me your evidence and we’ll give it a run – in each case the trial would take a lifetime and might well be inconclusive then. 🙂
Frank P @ 17.05
Irony, tinged with sarcasm.
I checked on the sarcasm bit at Google where I stumbled across the following illustration, though I’m not sure if its of irony, sarcasm, or combination of both. Bette Davis, at a Hollywood party and observing a passing starlet,remarked: “There goes the good time had by all”.
I got the bit between my teeth and posted something further on Israel, this time as a comment to Con Coughlin’s article on the possible withdrawal of Britain’s Ambassador to Israel in the current Daily Telegraph – in case you are still in any doubt where I stand. It seems to be by the way an increasingly small piece of turf, with not many people on it.
Frank, the problem is that you seem to be assuming that all agnostics are the same and are then seem to be annoyed that I suggest there is an agnosticism which uses a vague sense of deism to excuse vice. This is, it seems to me a fact. I have met many people who take such a view.
I certainly have not said or suggested that all agnostics are of this type, and was careful to speak of a type of agnosticism. If you are not that type of agnostic, and I would never have suggested or considered that you were, then clearly my point is not directed at you. But I have met many people who commit evil and yet say that they probably believe in some sort of God in a vague agnostic manner.
The drunken people fighting on a Saturday night, and having sex with several partners before they go home or get put in the cells, are not normally atheists in my experience but would claim some sort of agnostic position. It is an excuse to avoid facing up to themselves. If there is a God then live as though there was. If there is not then have the courage to be just an animal.
If I think there is a chance that if I walk off a cliff I will plunge to my death then I act on that chance by avoiding such a circumstance. It affects how I live. There can be no %s with that belief in God which is the beginning of real faith. If you believe that there might be a God then that is the same as believing that there is a God. If such a belief is not acted upon then it does not exist at all because if it really existed it woould change everything.
Many religious people have no faith at all.
Peter and Frank
The question of religious belief raised in your posts reminded me, you will be alarmed to learn, of Trotsky – or rather of something Trotsky wrote. I had to look it up. Trotsky goes on a bit, so I will not provide the link, but in a letter to “Comrade Burnham” in january 1940 he writes “Do you really assume that in the Fourth International an editor of a theoretical organ can confine himself to the bare declaration: “I decisively reject dialectical materialism” – as if it were a question of a proffered cigarette: “Thank you, I don’t smoke.” ”
My own view, and I suppose I should say experience, of religious, and specifically Christian, belief is that it also is not like a proffered cigarette to which one can say “Thank you, I’ll try one of those”. Someone either starts to believe or ends believing without choice. Muggeridge, again, was someone who saw that doubt was intimately connected to faith as in “Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief”, so I suppose if we have not been felled by atheism on the road to Damascus, even the strongest doubt is bound to a modest hope for faith. It is still not really a question of choice, though it sounds to be, to hear a knock at the door and hear the voice and to ask the stranger in. The Jewish religion in this regard seems attractive in so far as it has a very good record and does not, in so far as I am correctly informed, require believing in a God who can be seen, heard, touched, etc. An American friend many years back noted that in the Old Testament the only person who actually saw God was Moses – and he only saw His “nether-regions”.
In sum, though, it seems to me that you cannot simply look through the available religions, or their opposites, like Senior Service, Rothmans, Players and just decide to pick one. It either hits you or it doesn’t as with Pascal, for instance, on the Pont Neuf in Paris in a storm – he was a bit of lad until then if i remember correctly.
So no evidence, even a nail wound in a hand, would convince the person who is not convinced; and the person who is convinced, will not need the wound. All a bit tautologous.
I hear that things get really mysterious when you study quantum mechanics…Those infinite smallnesses terrify me!
Malfleur @ 22.58
Doesn’t quantum physics require one to believe that a particle can exist in 2 places simultaneously?
Peter.
Thomas Henry Huxley, who coined the word agnostic in 1869, said:
“Agnosticism, in fact, is not a creed, but a method, the essence of which lies in the rigorous application of a single principle…Positively the principle may be expressed: In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In matters of the intellect do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable”.
I think I go with that.
Prior to that he had said to Charles Kingsley:
“I neither affirm nor deny the immortality of man. I see no reason for believing it, but, on the other hand, I have no means of disproving it. I have no a priori objections to the doctrine. No man who has to deal daily and hourly with nature can trouble himself about a priori difficulties. Give me such evidence as would justify me in believing in anything else, and I will believe that. Why should I not? It is not half so wonderful as the conservation of force or the indestructibility of matter…”
I like that too.
And Robert Ingersol, apparently known as The Great Agnostic, said,
“We can be as honest as we are ignorant. If we are, when asked what is beyond the horizon of the known, we must say that we do not know.”
Now I’m done – because there is no end to this one – and ‘life is short’. Now THAT I do believe, because I have many yardsticks by which to measure it, including my own, which gets shorter by the day.
I’ve only persisted thus far because I know nothing that I say will loosen your anchor. Heaven forfend!
Malfleur (22:23)
Read your DTel – Coughlin blog comment. Okaay-ee! Now I geddit. And I agree, the Camel Corps and Coughlin don’t.
Malfeur et al, –
Quantum Physics is as far beyond my grasp as (presumably) Newton’s understanding of calculus is beyond the grasp of a chimpanzee.
Consequently, I’m not asserting anything, other than the fact that I’m intrigued to read what a couple of minds who do know something of Quantum Physics have to say about what they think Quantum Physics may explain or where it may even lead –
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2225190/Can-quantum-physics-explain-bizarre-experiences-patients-brought-brink-death.html
Frank P @ 01.25
This commentator summed it up better than I could and essentially it was the question I put to “Patricia Shaw” whenever it turned its attention to the “settlement” question:
http://www.israpundit.com/archives/51206#more-51206
dweller says:
December 3, 2012 at 8:44 am
“Ban Ki-moon says Israeli Construction a Blow to Peace: ‘Settlements are illegal under international law‘…”
Let him either:
A. cite with specificity as to its explicit applicability the ‘law’ he has in mind; OR
B. STFU.
I’m not at all clear about what Ban Ki-moon meant if he said that ‘Settlements are illegal under international law’.
My guess is that he was referring to some specific Israeli settlements somewhere near Jerusalem. On the other hand –
1. If he was referring to any settlements anywhere in the world and
2. If there is a sound basis in international law for his assertion; then –
his statement sounds very attractive indeed. Britain could rely on it as an internationally accepted, sound reason, for rounding up and deporting the huge numbers of people who have settled in Britain without being invited…..
Fat chance of that of course.
But imagine some disaster in the Middle East (e.g. a few nuclear explosions) leading to 10 million Muslims and 10,000 Israelis arriving in Britain via the Channel tunnel.
My guess is that there would be no effort at all to prevent the Muslims taking up residence, but the government, egged on by the Guardian and the BBC, would use the armed forces to ensure that the Israelis were deported immediately.
Herbert Thornton @01:43
I thought we did microtubules last week. Microtubules are to be found in every cell in the body, not just brain cells.
IRISHBOY @22:21
Before WW1 there were very few muslims or jews in that region, which had become a predominately neglected wasteland – governed by the Turks. There were certainly no “palestinians”. They are a relatively modern invention – imported scum from all over the muslim world. What did they do with the eye-watering $Billions given to them in aid in the last 60 years? They certainly didn’t use the money for any peaceful purposes like building.
@Frank P
Thomas Henry Huxley…
I’ll go with all of that.
Herbert Thornton 4th, – 03:17
“some disaster in the Middle East (e.g. a few nuclear explosions) leading to 10 million Muslims and 10,000 Israelis arriving in Britain”
As ash?
Hexhamgeezer @ 00:25
I’m not sure…
but I can see how one might be able to get from wave/particle duality to a
belief in the Trinity…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHHz4mB9GKY
How spooky is THAT!
There are also various other YouTube videos on the implications of quantum mechanics and quantum gravity. The bottom line seems to be that we are all connected and are composed of particles from the Big Bang, but not even the best physicists have the remotest idea what caused “the Singularity” which triggered the Big Bang or how it could contain in potentiality what developed out of it – such as, for example, Fats Waller…
The good news therefore is: everything remains possible!
Malfleur @100
Hasn’t Chris Huhne demonstrated this duality already – being in 2 places at the same time? This is probably why the authorities are taking so long to deal with him, the papers in all likelihood being studied at both Oxford and Cambridge to produce a singular conclusion.
The ‘singularity’ is probably the wall through which we cannot pass.
Ostrich (occasionally) (4 Dec, 09:55) and me (4 Dec, 03:17) –
Do our 2 posts illlustrate the difference between a Pessimist & an Optimist?
“I don’t understand why we continually urge the eurozone countries to go forward with this fiscal and political union, when we know in our hearts that it is anti-democratic and therefore intellectually and morally wrong,” Boris Johnson, today.
Can’t say it much clearer than that.
Herbert Thornton 4th, – 11:32
Isn’t an optimist someone who forgets to use a pessimist?
I don’t think we can believe Boris Johnson at all. He is now arguing for staying in the EU but renegotiating terms, which he knows is not possible. A referendum for such an outcome would be a con.
I am not sure that it can be said that something which is anti-democratic is therefore morally wrong. This seems to me to be sloppy thinking and speaking. But I am not convinced that Boris is any different to any other career politician and he may well not want people to think clearly.
I never thought I would be on the same side as Cameron, but I am most certainly against Leveson and the ethos put forward. One can only hope that Cameron will stand firm, yet somehow I doubt it. Milliband and his ilk smell blood, and the band of supporters, including all the high-profile press family victims, are having a field day.
Boris merely wants to do what he has always done, remain in the public eye by being controversial, eccentric, occasionally mildly comical – and become rich in the process. He realises that this can lead, willy-nilly, to gaining power, so now he is aspiring towards even more power, having got used to it with his Mickey Mouse Mayoralty – the biggest con ever on the citizens of Londonistan. He must wake up every morning and think, “HTF did I get away with that!” And his next thought must then be, “We-ee-ll. I did, so what else can I get away with?” – just like every other con-man that ever lived.
Then he looks at Cameron and thinks, “Well, if HE could get away with THAT – why not me?” And we all know what that will lead, too. Let’s hope this time that he falls short of his overweening ambition.
FFS! – you registered Tories: get yourselves a real leader, before he usurps even that office.
Hexhamgeezer (11.16)
“The ‘singularity’ is probably the wall through which we cannot pass.”
A profound statement, good sir! I would add that one of the lessons of life is to know when to stop banging one’s head against it, which is one of the causes of severe headaches.
‘The internet is like the Wild West.’ (Brian Leveson) And who’s that galloping towards us, firing his six guns in the air? Why, it’s ‘Wild’ David Lindsay!!!
‘Margaret Thatcher, fully briefed by Special Branch and by MI5, has serious questions to answer about her closeness to [Sir Jimmy Savile], as surely as she has about her reliance on Sir Peter Morrison, and about her mesmerisation by Sir Laurens van der Post’. (His blog 30.11.12)
As the great man himself (Sir Laurens, not David Lindsay) was wont to say, ‘Only in the sea of silence can we find the fish of peace’.
Having skip-read through great tracts of the Leveson Report, it seems to me to be a treatise for a Doctorate Degree in the Art of the Bleeding Obvious. Never in the field of human history has so much been written, about so little, on behalf of so few, at such great cost to the taxpayer.
Hope you’re enjoying the Antipodean weather m’Lord – laughing up the short sleeve of an appropriate floral shirt at a suitably located beach-barbie. Good luck to you, you deserve it after playing ringmaster in a three-ring celeb-circus complete with clowns, orchestrating a travesty of lying self-interest and hypocrisy wrapped around the genuine nub of outrageous crime – which should have been dealt with before a bog-standard criminal court, minis the partisan political trappings.
Listen up! Let the press, warts and all, get on with its job. If they step into criminal enterprise – nick ’em. Otherwise let free speech flow.
There – that took five minutes. I’ll settle for trip to the Thurston Christ Show; two tickets and I’ll drive there at my own expense.
http://www.thursford.com/christmas-spectacular.aspx
A new national hero!
Here’s a man who’s prepared to stand up for basic human rights-when he’s not lying down.
http://bogpaper.com/2012/12/03/kevin-mark-lefty/
I’m often up at Sandringham, and Thursford is not too far from there. But I would imagine it is sold out now? And it is quite a drive from Maidstone just for the event.
Noa (14:25)
You are Kevin Marx and I claim my free Parker Pen.
Definitely one for the blogroll, Peter.
Andy Car Park (13:58)
Hope you’re well. Your attendance record gives some cause for concern. Hope it’s better fish to fry, rather than enforced absence through frailty of the flesh, or suppression of the spirit?
ACP
… in other words, let’s be sharing some of them pieces of fish you found in the sea of silence.
So Boris is taking another anti-Camoron stance, well half a stance anyway, in castigating Dave’n’George for their support for the Eurozone to integrate fully in political and financial terms, but he stops too soon in his assessment and surely misses the obvious which is this:
That once the United States of Europe has the final bolts of statehood inserted (though not exactly where I would put them), another big step is taken towards One World Government (How easy it would be for the new EUSSR to ‘ratify’ the stuff now emanating from the UN without having to worry about the voters – O’Barmy’s tactic) and then a few years down the line, how easy it will be for a future British Government to slip into this wonderful entity just as a bureaucratic ‘harmonisation’ exercise.
Win Win for Quisling Dave. His agenda in advanced without him suffering the slightest political damage at home.
Must draw attention to Trolltopia’s whinge about Kelvin MacKenzie, in particular the cute comment by Colonel Mustard who opined thus:
Colonel Mustard • 2 hours ago
“I definitely think the anti-racist and anti-discriminatory laws should be extended to regional and county differences between the people in the UK – and of course to city differences. And whilst we are at it to hair colour, eye colour, clothes and jewellery. In fact it should be a criminal offence to comment on anything pertaining to an individual’s identity, characteristics or appearance, including their choice of watches. Only in this way, by cracking down ruthlessly on comment and opinion, can we build a modern Utopia here where everyone loves everyone else and no harsh words are ever uttered.
I would recommend that everyone wears the same green cotton suit and tennis shoes too, but that might undermine Growth.”
On form this morning, Colonel. All correct, Sir!
Today’s woman’s hour was a treat, a treat that is; if you, like me love to hear presenters tying their bowels in knots in their stupid attempt not to offend the genital mutilating followers of the 6th or was it 16th century paedophile but then who cares a jot either way.
The interviewer I think it was Jane Garvey was interviewing a middle eastern (I think Pakistani woman) who has renounced Islam as the font of all things evil and now spends her time fighting for the rights of women and in particular Muslim women’s rights, and hiding from those Muslim men intent on killing her.
Each time she attacked the wearing of the Burke, the interviewer pointed out that some women found it liberating, when she argued against sharia law the interviewer tried her best to put forward a counter argument but she was eventually silenced beaten into submission as it were when she tried to argue that genital mutation was not necessarily as bad as the interviewee was trying to argue.
Oh how I loath these right-on liberal lovies.
Peter (14:44)
Just to make it clear – I was jokin’, not moochin’! Mind you, if his Lordship could, through his connections to showbiz, work a couple of tickets, I’d not be ungracious enough to return them in high dudgeon.
But as you say, its a full-house from now to Christmas – and Norfolk is replete with the bus-trippers from far and wide, who make it a sell-out every year and boost the economy hereabouts considerably, I’m told. So there is still breath in the body politic and Christian customs of Olde Engerland!
As for Sandringham, Her Maj.’s apparatchiks up the road are fully conversant with ways ways of fleecing the punters who visit the Christmas Fair in the grounds. More bleedin’ buses, too, polluting the pristine air that pervades normally in these parts off-season. But with an ever-burgeoning family, I suppose she has to count the pennies and exploit her private resources to the full. And the principle ‘caveat emptor’ is always there to protect the wise.
The other side of that coin, though, is that the estate staff up there (as opposed to the Christmas extra hire-ins – franchised, I guess) tend to be a bit grumpy about their employers. A few years ago I was tempted by the annual exhortation to ‘Pick Your Own Apples’ from the orchards of the royal estate. Having availed myself of a couple of stones, or so, of Cox’s, I reported to the tent to pay and got change from a fiver. “Keep the change!” I breezily offered, noting the reasonable pricing in that regard, anyway. “Naw, them hev enough, bor , you keep your pennies, they dunt need ’em.”
It didn’t occur to him, apparently, that I meant the tip was for him. Don’t know if that attitude is propagated by the normal stinginess, or customary honesty, of the dumplings. Combination of both I suspect.
David Ossit,
Hello David, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is the wonderful woman (and I mean wonderful) who you heard on Woman’s Hour. She was born in Somalia and – well look her up on Google, and you will see what a terrific person she is. I don’t think she was silenced into submission, bigger bullies than those at the BBC have failed to break her. I imagine she couldn’t be bothered to lower herself to argue with such an imbecile. Yes, David, I too hate these liberal lovies. Useful idiots!
There are still some spaces Frank. Monday 11th for instance.
I don’t have any contacts there to get free tickets however. I’d imagine your network would be more fruitful?
Anne Wotana Kaye 1
“I don’t think she was silenced into submission, bigger bullies than those at the BBC have failed to break her.”
Hello Anne I agree, possibly I did not make myself clear, I meant that the silly woman from ‘Womans Hour’ was the one who had to submit, I like you thought this Ayaan Hirsi Ali was wonderful.
Frank P 4th, – 13:32
“Then he looks at Cameron and thinks…”
Isn’t that how all Etonians are trained?
Malfleur (4 Dec – 10:00)
Thanks for that very interesting link –
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHHz4mB9GKY )
Spooky indeed. It reminds me of this story about a mathematician and a statistician who were asked to conduct a Thought Experiment. They were told –
“Imagine yourself standing one foot away from the person you love most and that
you can take as many steps closer to make contact as you like – but on this condition. Each step must be only half the distance of the one before it. How many steps are you willing to take?”
The mathematician declared that he wouldn’t bother because the number of steps needed were infinite and therefore contact was an impossibility & could never happen.
The statistician one the other hand said that he’d keep on taking steps – because he reckoned that he’d be able to get close enough for all practical purposes.
Maybe Quantum Physics is on the side of the statistician?
Peter From Maidstone,
Herbert Thornton @01:43 kindly supplied us with this article from the DM:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2225190/Can-quantum-physics-explain-bizarre-experiences-patients-brought-brink-death.html
If one accepts that Penrose and Hammerhof’s premise that the soul is housed courtesy of the “quantum state” of microtubules within brain cells (as opposed to any other cells in the body) then what about animals? Their brain cells are also fully replete with microtubules. So do they not also have souls? What about our pets? After keeping a dog for 14 years I had to observe that whilst not mimicking human behaviour he did have an intelligence and personality traits that were unique and all his own. Did the former AoC ever pronounce on the topic of animal souls? I cannot imagine that the kindly Rowan would ever crush an old lady by telling her that her cat was just a walking machine and its life meant nothing to God or the universe.
(BTW. Hammerhoff with that beard looks too much like Gary G for my liking. Also, I’m willing to believe that beards can contain life – probably e-coli.)
Herbert Thornton @ 18:41
Or on the side of the Zenophobic.
EC @ 18.58
“…probably e-coli”
I like it!
On animals and souls: if the quantum physicists are on the right track (and I like people who keep banging their heads against the wall, because occasionally one of them breaks through to freedom) and everything is connected, then your dog’s personality was in a sense a part of your soul and vice versa. The disturbing aspect of this “everything is connected” argument, although apparently it operates only at the tiny, tiny, tiny level, emerges if you replace Hitler for your dog in that proposition. That looks as though it is heading towards a theory of original sin: “don’t even go there!”
Peter (16:24)
Peter – it was a joke! Followed by an after-joke (a bit like a placenta) designed to mock his Lordship Leveson, not a hint to mump free tickets to a Christmas razz-ma-tazz (though I hear tell it’s a show worth seeing for its mix of Christmas cheer laced with an appropriate degree of solemnity fitting for the occasion and the presence of children). And no! I’m not their PR rep! It was handy prop to formulate the piss-take.
I suppose I should heed the Good Book, “Cast not thy seed on stony ground …” or something like that, if my memory serves ..
Norfolk folk, dobro utro!
Sandringham estate could find a new role after 31st December:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2242841/MP-Philip-Hollobone-warns-British-countryside-built-accommodate-new-immigrants-Romania-Bulgaria.html
Frank P @ 14:45
Bogroll for Blogroll: seconded!
Malfleur (19:52)
I regularly correspond with a friend who writes a column in the national press and am amazed at the apparent telepathy that exists at times between us. Oft times I have known, almost to a word, what will appear in the next column. There does seem to be something in telepathy – or common consciousness. I have likened it to the amazing coordination and unison in the habits of the pink footed geese that fly to and fro over my adobe hacienda at this time of year and I marvel at their synchronisation in both time and movement; one could set the clock by them.
Another manifestation of that phenomenon is the number of times I have instinctively got the urge to call my No. 2 daughter by telephone, for no particular reason, only for the phone to ring as my hand reaches toward it – and to find that not only is it her calling, but knowing with certainty that it would be. I can’t explain it other than coincidence. She lives some 180 miles from us. Doesn’t happen with the other three children. But with her it consistently happens. Consciousness is a mystery. All part of the Great Unknown, maybe not for ever; but for now ….? Let there be mystery rather than certainty.
Malfleur 20:04 It’s a kind of death-wish. Rather than tackle an unsustainable reality our politicians would rather selectively tackle the outcome. They can call for concrete and housing and more taxes to pay for it all but they can’t call for sanity in Brussels.
Well-put Well-wisher.
Have you chosen where you are moving to, btw? Myself, I don’t think there is anywhere and will probably head back – faute de mieux and because, as the Chinese saying has it, “a falling leaf returns to its roots”.
On Boris Johnson
I have watched the short clip from Mr. Johnson’s speech which is allowed us at http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/iainmartin1/100192669/boris-shows-that-eurosceptics-are-in-a-mess/
Setting aside the muddying of the waters by Mr. Martin which follows, and taking the words in the clip as the essence of Mr. Johnson’s position and at face value, he is calling for an in-out referendum.
Now if he goes on to say that we should have the referendum, but then stay in and use its moral and political force to negotiate detachment from what we dislike in it and agree new terms for a limited “common market” relationship, that is not really any different from UKIP. Except that UKIP, as I understand it, would disengage from the EU and then begin to negotiate a new relationship, which one might argue will leave an uncomfortable hiatus of undetermined length between detachment and re-engagement from which all manner of unhappiness might arise. What the content of the renegotiation would comprise remains to be clarified. One hopes that it would not, in Mr. Johnson’s scenario, be limited to a halt to the momentum pressing Britain towards political union and membership of the single currency zone, and would recover our sovereignty and control over our law-making. As can be the case in historical movements, these concerns would most likely take on a life and velocity of their own and the politicians, scurvy or otherwise, would be led by the trend.
On the question of whether Mr. Johnson is to be trusted, I think that remains to be seen – as indeed it remains to be seen with Mr. Farage. Mr. Farage travels with less baggage than Mr. Johnson; this is true. I do not however see evidence for arguing the cynical position that Mr. Johnson is an irredeemably corrupt showman who will change his principles on the flip of a coin, or the on the bribe of some group of banksters or within his party. He MAY well do so, as he is a politician and, not yet, a statesman. He is somewhat eccentric, and as such is set colourfully against the grey backdrop which his colleagues present. He is clearly ambitious and as such pliable by those with the means to advance him, whether they are on stage or behind the scenes He does not, as far as I can tell, have the same hypocritical talents of the Labour Party rabble. I am of course open to being betrayed in this, but one can one do? One cannot conjure leaders out of one’s hopes. Is there perhaps the making here, still in embryo, of an alliance with a rump Conservative Party and an insurgent UKIP? We must certainly expect to see the kaleidoscope spin into some new, and possibly uncomfortable, patterns before we can get Britain out of the EU mess or even the Bulgarians off the Sandringham estate.
Malfleur, 21.21:
Boris is being less than clear on an in/out referendum. My understanding of his suggested referendum question is: “Do you want us to negotiate a new deal with EU or not (ie, are you happy as it is?)?”
He then mentions the words “in” or “out”, which, if anything, suggests a three-option referendum.
His initial suggestion doesn’t provide an “out” option, and assumes (it’s a big assumption) that the rest of the EU is interested in negotiating with us at all.
They don’t have to negotiate unless we invoke article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, under which we announce our intention to leave the EU, whereupon the remaining EU is obliged to negotiate the terms of our future relationship.
This, at least, is my understanding as spelled out in the EU Referendum blog, which brings a chilly blast of (what seems to be) reality to assessing our situation.
We need some principled and able politicians dedicated to our country’s interest.
I doubt whether Boris or Nigel tick both those boxes.
Things you will never see featured on BBC TV:
http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/critical_mass/the_endless_2minute_hate.php
Hi Frank P, so did you want the tickets? or have I got the wrong show in mind?
Frank P 5th, – 00:39
“Things you will never see featured on BBC TV:”
What a nice, sweet little ‘Palestinian’. I bet her Mum is proud of her.
Ostrich (occasionally)
December 5th, 2012 – 11:23
A timely reprise on the subject from Pat Condell; two years ago, still current and ever will be apparently:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1N1zhUm84w
Peter from Maidstone (08:01)
Get thee behind me, Christian. 🙂
And while we’re on the subject, let’s get in the mood for it. Flakes of snow here this morning, so enjoy:
http://askmarion.wordpress.com/2012/12/05/so-where-is-the-war-on-christmas-coming-from-a-worthwhile-read/
Frank P – Bloody cold here. This town is in the chain of foothills (they would be called mountains in Britain) of the Sierra Madre and I am wearing a quilted jacket over a long-sleeved T-shirt and huddled up near the heater. It will warm up around noon, though.
Frank P 5th, – 13:37
“A timely reprise on the subject from Pat Condell;”
Completely sound.
p.s. I notice, in the list of his other videos on YT, he’s upgraded Stalin’s old expression, “Useful Idiots”. Pity “Valuable Imbeciles” doesn’t trip off the tongue quite so easily.
Frank P 5th, – 13:59
“Flakes of snow here this morning,”
Up here in the Northern Marches we’ve got 3+ inches…snow, I mean!
I’m looking forward to the Beeb’s weatherpersonnage adopting suitably funereal or apocalyptic tones tonight. It’s a bit chilly and it’s started snowing a bit.
When will this Global Warming Hell end/start?
David Ossitt – December 4th, 2012 – 15:33
“Today’s woman’s hour was a treat…” Your analysis seems succinct David.
Though I have have a more general concern, should I say bitch about it?
Why a Womans hour at all?
This gender discriminatory oestrogen fest was started at some time in the Great Bore war, when men were out working 23 hours a day down the pit or wrestling with weevils in t’shuttling shed. The womenfolk, meanwhile ,were at home pounding dubbin in a tin and washing bucketfuls of spuds for their mens’ scran.
The soothing sounds of the BBC were necessary and meaningful to them then. It was a kind of housewives crack cocaine.
The tales of old Mrs McWhirter knitting twenty jumpers a day on Iona from reclaimed seaweed, or discussions of the best way of treacling your tart, were absolutely necessary for home front morale.
But now we live in a different and equal world. If women want to grow sgt major mustaches they can, and often do. The glass ceiling means they’re more likely to be in the workplace than their down trodden house husbands or de-named and de-natured partners; it is often the once horny hands that now bake the cakes as well as rocking the cradle.
And none of us would have it any other way of course. I for one am delighted that I’m left to manage the ironing and the dysoning on my own whist the little woman goes out to arm-wrestle todays modern delinquents. Ah the pleasure of a nice cup of tea and a biscuit mid morning when the washing up is done and I can hang up my pinnie in the Ark’s kitchen and my mate Sam comes round for a chat about his latest modelling activity. (1:48 scale Spitfire rather than his catwalk sashay, jut in case you were wondering)
But why the heck would the gender bendering bleebs think that I want to listen to bloody Jenni Murray every day? As Sam would say, let’s airbrush the defect out.
It’s simple, its got to go. It’s had it’s day. Its done for. It needs to be replaced.
But the problem is: I can see the bleebs minds thinking “he’s right,Noa is, we’re discriminating!” But then turning to alternative programme such as; Gay hour, Transgender hour, Black and brown hour. But still no Mens Hour.
So maybe, just maybe, even the current Hags hour is better then the appalling alternatives.
Noa @17:09
Woman’s Hour? I thought that living up where you do, you’d be more into “Loose Women” 🙂 BTW can you get ITV up there?
Kolkata?
Where or what the pluck is Kolkata?
I ask because, according to the bllebs, England are apparently doing quite well there,
“Tourists take third Test advantage in Kolkata”
Ah well, back to Patrick Mercer’s excellent “Dust and Steel”, when men were men and Pandys’ were strapped to Nine pounders for a the British army’s old idea of a blow job.
EC Hiya- Loose Women? On ITV/Granada.
But I try to avoid them, the trolley rammers, thong busters and handbag wielders at Asda, preferring the more genteel, yet no less cutthroat, queues in Messrs E H Booths greengrocers, where as you know, the scramble for the last large wholemeal loaf is as balletic as the Nutcracker, yet as lethal as kendo.
Noa (15:33)
Heh, heh, haa -harummph! Send that one to the Radio Times; they won’t be able to resist it!
On a serious note – do they still publish viewing ratings anywhere on a regular basis? Who the hell listens to it? Well – perhaps I should rather ask, “Who – except David Ossitt …. (and why oh why David – O)?”
I think its merely there to provide jobs for those women unemployable elsewhere in That Sappho sinecure; the listeners, if there are any such (other than David and I’m sure he was only passing through, so to speak) are, I’m sure, irrelevant to its purpose.
The Brotherhood of Mean.
And speaking of wimmins’ rights, Andrew McCarthy updates the situation in Egypt and blows away the miasma of misconceptions and malicious misrepresentations:
http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2012/12/04/not-the-same-sharia-provision/?singlepage=true
Just as we augured, when the “Arab Spring” was just an inaccurate weather forecast – of Michael “Hurricane” Fish proportions.
Noa: Kolkata is, I believe, on the same planet as Mumbai and Beijing – a planet of renamed cities. The original is distinct from the other two’s originals, as far as as I know, by not being coupled culinarily with duck.
Thanks for that link Frank P. I don’t think anyone around this Wall ever thought the direction Egypt and Libya et al would be any different from what is now materialising. The Wahabbi riyals are dominant and encouraged by a corrupt Saudi monarchy and a cretinous Obarmarchy.
Alluding to your post yesterday I simply can’t think of a time when Europe and the middle east were less stable. Mass emigration means that the cultural fault lines no longer stop variously, at the Greek or Austrian or Polish borders, but run outwards from muslim ghetto in every western town and city, linking straight back to the 14th century in western high technology Riyadh.
Frank Sutton -18.20
“..not being coupled culinarily with duck…”
Tee hee! One for the recipe book, ranking alongside the ‘Rat au Van.; yep, that’s rat that’s been run over by a van. A dish best served to the sound of clucking bells.
Frank P
Re BBC programme listeners. I found this. Unfortunately or not it doesn’t go down to beyond channel to programme level to finger David Ossitt-and I-as the two Wimmin’s Hour voyeurs.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/siteusage/#bynetwork
Monthly podcast downloads No 9 Woman’s Hour: News, Politics, Culture (Radio 4) 188,781.
Bombay Duck isn’t a duck. It’s a fish. Acquaintance with it is more by smell than taste and if one should choose to explore the latter there is a good chance of acquiring something notoriously associated with another Indian city – Delhi.
Frank Sutton
Having been taught that analysis of geopolitics (and just about everything else) should begin by drawing distinctions between capabilities and intentions, I am sure the cunning politician would have no problem invoking Article 50 before holding the referendum.
Noa
What’s all this about buying bread in the greengrocers? Is this a spin-off from transgender politics? Is there no halting the collapse of traditional England, even in the North?
Well-wisher
Bombay duck is not a duck; but the Singapore grip is a grip.
Malfleur – that’s what I said. Which part of “Bombay duck isn’t a duck. It’s a fish” didn’t you understand?
😉
“……. alternative programme such as; Gay hour, Transgender hour, Black and brown hour. But still no Mens Hour.”
More likely, Paedophiles’ Hour, One-Eyed Lesbians’ Hour, or Illegal Immigrants’ Hour.
Agree with Noa that Womans’ Hour should have been scrapped years ago. Speaking as a woman, I have NEVER listened to it in my entire fairly long life, and never will, because just the patronising title puts me off, and as for Ms Murray’s babyish “Bye bye” at the end (I only hear this because I’m waiting to hear the news) grrrrrrrrr. What’s wrong with “goodbye”, pray? Bye bye is what one says to one’s toddler grandchildren.
The very idea of having a special programme for women stinks, as if we are 1) mentally deficient, and 2) are not part of the human race, which consists only of men. This rubbishy programme should go the way of the Miss World competition and be obliterated.
Radio 4 did try a “men’s hour” – hosted by Tom “sing if you’re glad to be gay” Robinson, and so relentlessly ghastly in its PC, sensitive, touchy feely awfulness that even Auntie felt obliged to man up and axe the emasculated horror.
I think it was called The Locker Room and was only half an hour long (not that I ever sat through the whole thing).
It was the sort of thing which would probably make you reach for your Penang lawyer.
Bombay Duck is of course not only not a duck but is, I’ve heard, not readily available, thanks to EU rules. I quite liked it, in spite of associations with Delhi (a city surely due for renaming).
Malfleur 9:08 … Aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrgggggggh! The governor (note the small, disrespectful g) of the French bank is another one. Where are all these people springing from?
Lesley C – Agreed about the ghastly Women’s Hour. I came back from having spent my teenage years abroad and when I came home and heard the patronising, childish “Women’s Hour” was baffled. Why did women need an hour? Why were women not passing on, mothers to daughters, all the information and tips women pick up on their way through adolescence without the benefit of the BBC? Who the hell was the BBC to decide what what women needed or should know? And it was all done with such an arch air.
And why no men’s hour to teach men how to flirt with women, help them on and off buses and out of cars, remind them archly how important it is to rremember their birthdays and so on? It struck me even then as rather communist, and One Worlder. And those self-satisfied, arch voices! When I was living in England and caught it, unintentionally, occasionally, my feet didn’t leave the floor in my leap across the room to get rid of it. Of course, these days you can just click it off from anywhere in the house …. Shut them up without effort.
In the UK “men flirting with women” is now nigh on a sex offence.
Well-wisher
I should have put quotation remarks around the Bombay duck reference and used your exact words. I understood, and it was just a spring-board for me to mention the Singapore grip. I believe Herbert Thornton may be familiar with the latter.
“In the UK “men flirting with women” is now nigh on a sex offence.” Only in the workplace and public spaces.
Hussein Obama still paralysed in the headlights of events in Cairo… He is not sure who to order to “stand down”.
Benghazi: Hussein Obama may have supplied the arms which were used in the murder of Ambassador Stevens and his colleagues.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012/12/05/NYT-Benghazi-weapons-funneled
IRISHBOY
Your point about cultural Marxists of the Guardian-BBC persuasion being able to hold two conflicting views on immigration comes down to the idea that prejudice can only exist when it is combined with Group Power. It is one of those irrational distortions of language they so love.
Jews in Israel are considered to hold power as a group so can be prejudiced when they build settlements. Foreign immigrants needing “settlements” in the UK are not considered to hold power so can’t be prejudiced.
Malfleur
Why would they need to be cunning? We were not given a referendum on joining the Common Market just on remaining in it.
Public awareness of article 50 needs to be increased as our political class and those interests that benefit from EU membership will try to cobble something together short of independence to put to a referendum and shut the debate down for a generation.
In case you want to update your book of prayers
Dear Lord,
This has been a tough two or three years.
You have taken my favourite actor Patrick Swayze.
My favourite musician Michael Jackson.
My favourite Blues Singer Amy Winehouse.
My favourite actress Elizabeth Taylor.
And now my favourite singer Whitney Houston.
I just wanted you to know that my favourite politicians are
Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg and Ed Balls.
Baron
December 6,
Amen!
Malfleur – re Bombay Duck understood, thanks. Re Singapore Grip also noted thanks and best left at that.
Wallflowers may be amused to know that middle-ranking gangsta rapper, The Game, has found God and recorded an album by the name of “Jesus Piece”, which he describes as follows:
“I still love the strip club and I still smoke and drink. I’m faithful to my family, so I wanted to make an album where you could love God and be of God, but still get it poppin’ in your life. I don’t want to feel like I can’t love God or appreciate Jesus and have to put down that blunt. I want to smoke, maybe shower up, then go to church. Get the word, walk out of church, maybe smoke again, maybe hit up a strip club or two and do me, but I don’t want to be ridiculed.”
The Game’s born again buddy, Bronze Badge Gangsta Frank P, added:
“An’ if Jesus walked on Earth today, he’d be up for a smoke before the sermon, a drink after distrib’tin’ the loaves and fishes and parkin’ dat ass in tha titty bar wid all the sinners and publicans before walkin’ home on water. True dat.”
This man has not been born again and seems to have not any idea about the Christian Faith. For this he is not personally to be blamed. But it is easy to set up any organisation nowadays and call it a Christian Church and teach all manner of heresy.
Pater fM @12.41
Peter, a creed that admits into its ranks someone like Tony should be at liberty to embrace the Game, too. All in all, the latter most likely hasn’t fugged up as many people as the actor of politics has.
on Boris’s stance on the EU: the guy may look baffoony, he’s got common sense though, and good nose for getting the whiff of the possible. What if we get the referendum, and the answer comes out ‘we stay in’? What then, ha? We’ll be in it forever. Your grandchildren won’t thank you, Frank.
Baron
We’ll have another one, and another one; until we get the right answer…
Lesley C @ 00.19
In private wards of a well known competitor to the NHS there is installed a rather up-to-date console made by Sony that enables one to watch TV, listen to the radio, surf the Net, play games. Amongst the ten or so TV channels, one is dedicated to gay dating. When Baron commented on it, every member of the staff, including the medical personnel, was surprised, nobody could explain why the channel was on, who made the decision to include it.
Baron
December 6th, 2012 – 10:09
“Dear Lord,
……… I just wanted you to know that my favourite politicians are
Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg and Ed Balls”.
Brilliant. In addition, I would just like to add that my favourite politicians are Gordon Brown and “Lord” Prescott, and that my favourite TV “personalities” are Shami Chakrabarti and Jacqui Smith. Over to you, Lord. You know what to do.
Malfleur, sir, we had a vote on the FPTP voting charade, you reckon we’ll get another one soon? Pull the other one. If the answer to the EU question were to be ‘no’ we would get as many counts as it takes to remedy it, not the other way round.
Baron dislikes the EU monstrosity more than you do, he already got a taste of a similar construct, had to flee it, has no idea where to move next what with advanced age and stuff.
By far the bst way to break the unwanted mutant is from within, insisting on a new deal that would scale it down, boycotting every functioning component of it, taking the Commission to court for failing to have the accounts audited, and things like that. Hoping we get get out fully out of Europe borders on the suicidal. Even today, when emotions against the EU run high, the majority of those polled are in favour of cooperating with Europe, that’s the Achilles heel of the campaign to sever relations with the EU fully, it will never happen in a controlled manner. The going for the impossible will enslave us for decades if not centuries.
Baron 14.16: I’m not sure if I’m the Frank whose grandchildren (currently non existent) won’t thank me. Boris has caught the whiff of Euroscepticism and realises there’s political capital to be made by appearing Euroscpetic.
Current talk about “renegotiating our relationship with the EU” is outright deception, consequently any referendum based on the idea of renegotiation is a fraud. It would be an “in/in” referendum, and either result would be taken as a popular mandate to stay in, with the “out” question ignored.
listen all, just to clear what may be a misunderstanding, the fake prayer ain’t Baron’s, a friend of his (a retired US Air Force colonel has sent it to him), it felt appropriate to give it a push.
Hi Baron,
I guess there is a difference between the misapplication of clear guidelines in the case of Tony, and the general development of illegitmate groups calling themselves Christian.
The prayer I found amusing. The misuse of the term Christian in all sorts of contexts I find problematic.
It is hard to see how Tony, with his known views, could be able to become a member of any Apostolic Church. It is not a club. I don’t say that in regard to his soul, but his well advertised and entirely anti-Catholic views.
Just a note to say that I have posted an interview with Theodore Dalrymple on the site. He very kindly agreed to answer some questions put to him by yours truly.
Frank S @ 14.56
the grandchildren bait was for the other Frank, sorry for the dropping of the P.
To the point: It need not be if those doing the renegotiation are genuine in their effort to scale the thing down. The perception exists here tht the British are the only skeptics, that’s not true, there are many on the Continent who dislike the direction the EU’s is taking, the inherent inefficiencies, the waste, the undemocratic flavour of it. Even in Germany many are questioning whether the surrender of sovereignty is worth it if it engenders a greater instability in the region than a mere economic union. If only we could get someone who truly believes in a Europe as an integrated economic entity of fully sovereign states, it would be doable.
“But it is easy to set up any organisation nowadays and call it a Christian Church and teach all manner of heresy.”
Hasn’t that always been the case? Episode Two of the “Dark Ages” series last evening on BBC 4 attempted to clean up the hitherto besmirched reputation of the Barbarians, The Huns, The Goths, the Visigoths and Ostrogoths and other bands of wandering marauding tinkers, who, according to the art sage with the tongue-twister name, who wrote and presented the programme, were not at all like the modern version who now infest Camden Town pubs dressed and made up in ‘Gothic’ garb; but were really practising Christians – probably attired a la Archie C*****bury. One tribe apparently constructed what is now, apparently, the most valuable bible in the World and their surviving murals depict stories familiar to all of us who ever attended Sunday School.
Next week he’s going to move on to the contribution of Muslims to the story of Christ. That should be interesting and will no doubt ruffle a few feathers on both sides of the great divide. Stand by for another Ambassadorial slayin’ in the Middle East somewhere. Do you think that’s why Obama is sending Anna Wintour here to occupy their Ambassador’s residence in Regent’s Park? Not far from the sumptuous mosque there, is it?
Who was it who coined the phrase, “History is bunk!” ?
ACP
Marn … ain dat de trut’.
That all takes me back to the typical first phone call of the day, after a busy weekend at Shocking Hill, circa late 50s.
“Harficer – aam telefarnin’ ta aks ya if ya cart the marn dat co-ut me ‘usbarn?”
Happy days! “Da-da-da da-da da-da .. don’ staarp de car-nivarl!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAL_gfIn6zo
Baron 15.30: Popular dislike of the EU is no doubt widespread across Europe, but most countries (including ours) are ruled by a political class with interests of its own. It is the EU which gives them fantastic pay deals and feather bedded pensions for non-jobs in Brussels.
As for negotiating, that would need the EU to be willing to negotiate – and why would they be?
Jimmy Savile detectives arrest legendary kiss-and-tell PR Max Clifford on suspicion of sexual offences
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2243952/Max-Clifford-arrested-Jimmy-Savile-detectives-question-sixth-man-suspicion-sex-offences.html#ixzz2EHrYCoDZ
People in glasshouses…………………………….
Seriously, this is hard to believe, although I fervently believe all the judges are criminally insane and pervs!
Remember Benghazi: Update on WWIII
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/51470
Anne Wotana Kaye 1.
“People in glasshouses…………………………….
Seriously, this is hard to believe, although I fervently believe all the judges are criminally insane and pervs!”
Hello Anne, I have always thought that this man is quite the gentleman and like you find it hard to believe.
However I do believe that many who are coming forward making claims of improprieties some of which go back many decades are simply jumping on the compensation band wagon and if it can be proved that they are then they should be prosecuted.
No, its never been possible to just set up a Church and have it considered part of THE one Church. Almost all the 35000 ‘Christian’ denominations in the world have been created in the last 100 years. The Goths were Arians and not Christians. They certainly produced some great art but Arianism is not Christianity.
David Ossitt
December 6th, 2012 – 16:35
Hi David, Yes they do seem to be out for getting some easy money in these hard times! Seriously, some of these accusations go back to 1974, and if they were 9 or 10 then, they would be about 50 years old now. I can understand youg children afraid to speak out, but these people reached maturity decades ago. Sorry, but I don’t believe a darn word!
Malfleur (16.15)
Real wacky stuff. What’s more, there may well be much more than a grain of truth in it.
There was a good piece in one of the papers a few days ago about an ambulance chasing lawyer who was advertising in prison newspapers for criminals to come forward and claim compensation from people who had purportedly abused them when they were young. All on a no win no fee basis. Its a charter to accuse anyone.
The last time I caught Women’s Hour (purely by mistake) a guest was banging on about how Myra Hindley was some kind of scapegoat… how unfair on the lovely Myra it was that people wanted her to rot in Hell. She was, after all and according to the guest, mentally ill, and therefore a ‘victim’ and was being excessively blamed because she was a woman. I don’t think I’ve tuned into Radio 4 since, except when Melanie P is on the Moral Maze.
Peter (16:50)
Wasn’t Arius (whose followers were Arians, I’m told) a Christian presbyter? They may have had a different interpretation of the Holy Trinity, but they had their ‘belief’ like other Christians. Must be difficult to be an arbiter in these disputes, I would guess.
I understood that the first punch up after Constantine I “Christianised” the Roman Empire was between the Arians and those of Trinitarian belief; difficult for a bystander like me, who has been looking for hard evidence for a lifetime, to know who’s right. Very puzzling. Not surprising that it frequently breaks out in bloodshed and destruction of antiquities. Claims and counter claims.
So little time, so much to discover ….
You should watch the series, Peter, and fisk it for us.
” Historic sex offences ” Historic? More likely hysterical! What odd language is used today, they mangle the English language without a care. This ‘historic’ garbage was heard on the BBC.
Anne WK1 (16:59)
Speaking in general terms, rather than this specific one, you are right to be sceptical. Problem now is that the police will no longer exercise reasonable discretion, for fear of being accused of ‘covering up’ offences, even when they suspect the complainant of being on the make. So anybody accused unjustly for venal or other malicious reasons will have to suffer the averse publicity of arrest – and a resultant stain on their character that is difficult to eradicate, even when they are innocent and are found to be so, by a judge and jury. It’s possible to foresee a tsunami of these cases. A very troubling development. Particularly as we know that there was indeed a culture of sexual corruption in the years under investigation within the BBC and showbiz generally.
But as arrest now always seems precede CPS consideration of whether there is sufficient evidence to charge (sadly with attendant publicity), I fear there may be many lives ruined by false accusation. The dilemma of course is that no body of authority is perfect; the police of yore made mistakes and sometimes were involved in chicanery; but the idea that some young politicised lawyer from the CPS, is a better judge to decide whether a complainant is telling the truth, or the value of one-against-one testimony, rather than an experienced Detective Chief Superintendent who has been around the block and is a hardened student of human nature and venality making the decision marking up a file ‘insufficient evidence to arrest and charge’ strikes me as being a negative development rather than a positive one; particularly when the offences are reported after the passage of many years and a defendant may have difficulty in accruing evidence to defend him/herself (remember women can be accused of paedophilia and sexual assault, particularly in the profession of education). The tables of statute of limitations for these type of offences should be reviewed, imho, even allowing for the fact that there may be good reasons why allegations may not emerge for several years. It is one of the most difficult areas of crime for investigators.
btw, qualifying the phrase , in the above post, “experienced Detective Chief Superintendent who has been around the block and is a hardened student of human nature and venality” one hopes there still exists such a thing in the modern police ‘force’? Someone please reassure me that such an animal still exists.
At this Christian season of good will; a small morality tale to gladden the heart.
My lady wife does not drive, never has and so amongst many other things I am her chauffer.
One of life’s tiny pleasures that she enjoys immensely involves me dropping her off early in our small market town on market day and then for me to collect her, a couple of hours later at an appointed time.
Today the weather forecast was not good and so I had suggested that when I collected her we drive over to North Leeds to have an early lunch and to make some purchases.
I collected her as arranged from the car park of our local M&S food shop, where she placed her bags in the rear of the car, then off we went to Leeds.
On parking, she reached for her handbag, it was not there, we begged the use of the telephone at the Waitrose reception to telephone M&S, and it had not been handed in.
All of the way home my wife was near to tears; it was not just her very expensive bag, a last birthday gift from me or the even more expensive wallet-purse inside of the bag, nor the cash, about £90, or her powder compact a memento from our once and only journey on the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, nor the spare house and car keys and the cluster of four or five credit/debit cards, no what hurt her most was the myriad of old personal items that once lost could never be replaced.
We double checked with M&S to no avail, then reported the loss/theft at our local police station and were given the number that we would need for our insurance claim.
On the way home I was working out all of the things that I had next to do, inform our card insurance company to stop all of her cards etcetera, I was still working out what more to do as I opened our front door, where I found on the mat a large note that said, “hello I have just tried to return you your handbag, please telephone me on xyz” this lovely man lives in one of the apartments above the M&S and he was getting into his parked car when he saw it on the ground where my wife had put it as she placed her shopping in the car earlier.
David, a story that truly warms the heart, you did right sharing it with us. Merry Christmas, young sir, to both of you.
apropos of what one does, Baron’s function within the family differs little from yours. He like you is a chauffeur, but also a banker, and a dish washer.
Malfleur (6 Dec.08:01) –
I’ve lived (come Christmas) for 84 years and have experienced a good deal of the ways of the world in the process, but the expression “Singapore grip” was new to me.
Till now I”d never heard of it, nor even experienced it, despite, half a century ago, living in Dar es Salaam for eight years.
However, you did set me thinking. I recall that Paul Johnson, writing in the Spectator, once made a reference to what he said was one of Evelyn Waugh’s favorite expressions.
The expression was – “Oriental Tricks, old boy, oriental tricks.”
If I remember rightly, he said that Waugh had also been heard to use it with reference to the hold that Wallis Simpson had on King Edward VIII.
Herbert Thornton
December 6th, 2012 – 20:31
I wonder if Wallis had to fortfy herself with a Singapore Sling, or was it perhaps Eddie who needed strengthening? 🙂
David Ossitt
December 6th, 2012 – 19:48
What a lovely thing to happen, and thanks for sharing it with us all. Renews badly needed faith in humanity.
Will they start on all the 60s and 70s rock stars? I am sure many if them could be guilty of some offence considered rather anachronistically.
I am just heading back home from a wonderful and moving service where the choir sang settings by Monteverdi and Palestrina of exceptional quality. There is still beauty in the world.
Many times over the years people have tried to better understand Jesus Christ by trying to put his last days into a modern context:
http://www.video4viet.com/watchvideo.html?id=NE9pxhm1ohQ&title=Billy%20Connolly%20-the%20Crucifixion%20Part1%20-%20See%20You%20Judas,%20Your%20Getting%20Oan%20Ma%20S
Followed by:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=va7qtkUYOgs
It hasn’t always worked out well…
“Will they start on all the 60s and 70s rock stars? I am sure many if them could be guilty of some offence considered rather anachronistically.”
But they were on so much booze and drugs, would they remember it? Many of the supergroups used to get their roadies to herd any over enthusiastic young teenage girls into what they euphemistically called “the dog pound.”
AWK1 6th, – 20:45
Wouldn’t too many Singapore Slings have the opposite effect? 😉
Anne Wotana Kaye 1 (6 Dec – 20:45)
I don’t know, but the only other Prince of Wales whom I’ve heard to have been addicted to the operation of a sling was Eddie’s grandpa, (later King Edward VII) during his visits to Paris, though of course, so far as we know, it was not of the Singapore variety.
Of course, not hearing of other examples of the operation of Oriental Tricks since Eddie’s case can neither prove anything nor prevent speculation.
I hesitate, but only momentarily, to step into the theological discussion of what constitutes the Christian Church, but I do think that, on the one hand, Constantine’s decision, influential though it undoubtedly was, was ex post facto and that, on the other, claims that any institution has a monopoly go counter to scripture. As someone with a protestant, nay Church of England, upbringing, I was fortunately spoken to by Him directly when He pointed out Matthew 18:20 where the friendly tax man records His words: “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them”. He did not go on to say, to the best of my recollection, “But if they want to form a Church they had better first fill out one of these forms…”, and Matthew, with an eye for potential taxable revenue flows, would certainly have noted it had He done so.
Incidentally, Jesus’ radical principle is honoured mutatis mutandis by the Chinese Communist Party, who have amended the words to something along the lines of “Where two or three are gathered together other than in the Party’s name, there shall be one of our spies in the midst of them”.
Hi Malfleur, there was and only is one Church and its teachings have remained the same. Indeed the early Church had already worked out who was the Church and who wasn’t long before Constantine. Thats why Arians weren’t the Church. Lots of people are in the one Church that we confess in the Creed. But a system of belief which contradicts the consistent witness of the Apostolic Churches, the ancient communities, isn’t properly Christian.
Just as anyone can call themselves Conservative but to be conservative means to embrace certain principles. If they are missing then it doesn’t matter if you call yourself Conservative like Dave, you are not.
To be a Muslim or a Marxist also means certain core beliefs must be embraced or you are neither a Muslim nor a Marxist. Christianity is no different. To be Christian properly speaking is to be part of the Church the Apostles established. Anything else is by definition not the Church. The group I grew up among was not the church. It was only started in 1829. That doesn’t mean many of the folk were not serious christians. But what we were taught was a very diminished form of christianity. The community I am part of now has a continuous life stretching back to the first century.
Others are free to disagree. I will not argue more and bore people.
Herbert Thornton @ 20.31
I am sorry to hear that – never say never…
David Ossitt
A happy story – and finally I am able to form some idea of what was in those handbags of Margaret Thatcher. I have never had the courage to research my own wife’s.
Peter from Maidstone @ 21:27
Yes, and what these composers tell us is that it cannot be destroyed, only hidden. Like evil, I suppose. Which would make man’s task over the next several thousand years to reveal the hidden beauty, and consign evil to obscurity. A tough task – but help is always at hand: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZII_OWJcUfY
Peter from Maidstone 21.27
Monteverdi and Palestrina. Ah, what giants! But I can’t let mention of them go past without giving a couple of links to two English Masters, Robert Whyte, organist of Ely Cathedral then Westminster Abbey in the mid-16th century, and his more internationally famous contemporary, William Byrd, the very equal of Shakespeare in his range of styles and stomach-churning depths.
Everyday meat and drink for Irishboy.
WHYTE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3X9D8x92uE
BYRD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji61TMHYlvI
Mark Steyn at last catches up with Jimmy Savile’s corpse and metaphorically does to it, what he suggests Savile literally did to the corpses of dead children in the morgues of the hospitals to which he held they keys.
http://www.steynonline.com/5298/the-court-predator
The pen is mightier than the sordid?
btw – Steyn didn’t explain what was Anthony Burgess’s beef with Salman Rushdie; can anyone give me an inkling?
Frank P – 2.07
With that aphorism, consider yourself The Master’s Equal!
Malfleur (6 Dec – 23:45) –
In a way I’m sorry too…. as for never saying “never” – these days I more often say – “It’s too late now……”
Proportion of young Muslim men in youth jails rises by more than a quarter as one in five offenders say they follow faith
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2244355/Proportion-young-Muslim-men-youth-jails-rises-quarter-offenders-say-follow-faith.html#ixzz2EM7lcgF2
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SURPRISE !
The world has gone completely mad!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/european/9721812/Dutch-linesman-killed-amateur-matches-cancelled-as-three-youths-charged.html
What the Telegraph carefully omits to tell you is that the three youths were Moroccan. If the ethnicity of the victim and perps were the other way about the MSM would be all over it!
EC
December 7th, 2012 – 09:42
Naturally. Muslims and it’s a racially prejudiced attack. We musn’t be unkind to the buggers.
More on Rotherham Social Services:-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2244297/UKIP-fostering-scandal-Its-social-workers-racist-say-Slovak-parents.html?
It would appear that the Government plans to try and force through the gay marriage bill next week. They seem to be adopting the same methodology as Mursi in Egypt.
If anyone wants to give some advice to the new strategy chief of the Conservatives, Lynton Crosby, he can be contacted FAO Lynton Crosby at mfullbrook@ctfpartners.com
I have sent him an email.
Regarding gay “marriage”, I absolutely agree with Ann Widdecombe on this. From the BBC;
“It fell to Ann Widdecombe to put into words what they [Tories who are anti gay marriage] were feeling – in particular their anger at being labelled “bigots” by those campaigning for the legalisation of gay marriage.
“Is it bigoted to recognise that the complementarity of a man and a woman in a union open to procreation is unique and cannot be replicated by other unions?” she asked, to cheers. “The real bigots, those who really deserve to be described as such, the real extremists, the real nasties, are those who believe that those who dissent from their views have no right to do so and that the state itself should silence them.” She poured scorn on the idea that the words “husband” and “wife” could be replaced in official documents by terms such as “partner” or “progenitor”.
Good on Ann W. Couldn’t have put it better. As for Cameron, my thoughts at this moment are unprintable.
Lesley C.
December 7th, 2012 – 15
Leslie, just lppking at Cameron’s flacid face and dodgy-shaped mouth, it says it all, why he is for gay marriage. This applies to Osborne and Philip Hammond to name just a few!
AWK1,
Widdy is one of the few public figures who can speak out without fear of having Peter Tatchell on their backs… er, so to speak 🙂
Mm, a celebrity Death-Match – Widdy vs Tatchell
Now that’s something I buy tickets for……
AWK – Agreed.
Also, regarding other posts above, it is very, very strange why these flaccid-mouthed men are so very keen on gay pretend marriage. Why? The human race has recognised the complementarity of men and women in the universal scheme since time began. When did Flaccid Dave and his sweetie-pie pals decide that the world has been running all wrong for the last 50,000 years?
EC
December 7th, 2012 – 15:44
I really love Ann, and how I wish she was Prime Minister! Far too intelligent for this lot.
See the nurse who took the hoax phone call about Duchess’s condition has commited suicide. How strange that young women who embarass the royal family have untimely deaths.
Well-wisher December 7th, 2012 – 12:16
I would urge you all to visit the link provided by Well-wisher above, the tale it tells is quite horrific.
It is perfectly obvious that the social services in Rotherham are a malign nest of politically correct evildoers supported and encouraged by the malevolent and corrupt secret children’s courts.
This is no more nor less than a 21st century version of the witch trials of yesteryear or even the Spanish Inquisition of old.
Those prattling liberals who oppose capital punishment often quote “better ten guilty men go free than one innocent man being hanged” well I for one would far rather see 100 children living with loving caring parents in conditions that are far less than ideal than removing said children in to the care of the dead hand of social services.
P from M at 1400 suggests that we write to Lynton Crosby, I have just sent the following, should I get a reply I will post it here, however as I headed it Sodomite Marriage I might well not get a reply.
For the attention of Mr Lynton Crosby.
Sir I am a conservative, I have been a conservative for the whole of my adult life.
I have never voted for any other political party and in years gone by I have worked long and hard for my local association, I was also an elected Town Councillor for more than fourteen years and was the Deputy Mayor for five or six years.
I will be seventy-three years old on the 5th February next and my wife and I will never ever vote for the party that we love if this Tom-foolery over Homosexual Marriage is followed through.
It was not in the manifesto, there has been no request or pressure for it from the homosexual community and the present changes that now allow (encourage even) same sex civil partnerships are and should be sufficient to satisfy equality under the law.
Sir you are spoken of as a straight talking individual please tell, David Cameron that what might well look clever in the soft-liberal areas of north London, looks to the rest of us as a load of old bollocks.
Yours truly,
David Ossitt.
David Ossitt (16:19)
Your letter is straight talking and right to the point; your credentials vis-a-vis the Conservative Party are impeccable. Unfortunately you have addressed the letter to someone who has been chosen by Cameron to organise the future of a party, the leaders of which which joined the Long March at the last election, if not indeed before that. Bing Crosby will be crooning from the same hymn sheet, otherwise he would not have been chosen. Just another change of cover for the plan.
The Conservative Party, per se, (the one that you joined and worked for) is no longer numerous enough, nor demographically constituted, nor geographically placed to win a first past the post election. The most they can hope for is another co-alliance with – well – whoever! The conservative Party is no longer a Conser-votive party. It is, to put it crudely, well and truly f****ed.
What to do?
See my next comment.
“Diversity boost for lowest rung of judiciary
Christopher Stephens says his brief is to make the process of selecting judges transparent and fair
Friday 07 December 2012 by Catherine Baksi
A quarter of the lawyers recommended as deputy district judges (magistrates’ courts) in the most recent round of appointments were black, Asian and minority ethnic (BME), statistics released by the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) this week reveal.
The Commission received almost 1,500 applications for the 28 positions available in the selection exercise earlier year – or 54 candidates for each post.
The competition was open to the 112,000 lawyers who met the eligibility criteria of having at east five years’ experience in the legal profession.
BME lawyers made up 10% of the eligible pool, accounted for 18% of applicants and were 25% of those selected.
The results show that the proportion of successful BME candidates has more than doubled since the last selection round in 2009 when a similar proportion applied, yet formed only 12% of the 26 appointments made.
A reasonable gender balance was also evident in appointments. 46% of the positions went to women, who made up 44% of the eligible pool – a slight improvement since the previous exercise.
Commenting on the figures, JAC chair Christopher Stephens (pictured) said: ‘Selections, as always, were made solely on merit and I am delighted to see such a strong performance from BME lawyers and continued good results for women.’
He added: ‘There is still a long way to go on judicial diversity and we hope this success is consolidated in other competitions, with the results feeding through to salaried and more senior appointments in the future.’
The data also shows that barristers applied in much larger numbers in this competition than in the previous exercise. In 2009, 221 applied, compared with the 535 who applied in this round.
But solicitors held their own, being as successful as barristers in being selected. Solicitors made up 52% of applicants and 50% of those selected, compared to barristers who were 36% of applicants and 36% of those selected.
The age of successful candidates, reported for the first time, shows that 75% were 45 and under and seven candidates were 35 and under.”
http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/diversity-boost-lowest-rung-judiciary?utm_source=emailhosts&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=GAZ+07%2F12%2F2012
Bill Whittle expands on the political philosophy that he expounded so forcefully in the last clip of his we watched last week:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=TuL41ohlfZY
The sound quality is not as good as the last clip, but persevere with it, as there are ideas a-plenty contained in the hour-long exposition to the Hancock Park Patriots convention, that can be directly translated into the UK political predicament. It is a call to action that is inspiring and doable. There problems are also our problems. Conservatism reinvigorated if some of his ideas are implemented.
sri ‘their problems’.
With those thoughts in mind, like David, I followed Peter’s advice to email Crosby:
For the attention of Mr Lynton Crosby:
Watching this exposition from Bill Whittle could inspire some ideas for onward transmission to Mr Cameron. It might even persuade him to fall out from the Long March and lead Conservatism back on to the path for a brighter future for the Party and the Country (unless you have been recruited to clear the path for more inroads for the long march through the institutions. in which case ignore this email). But I still recommend that you watch the Whittle video, anyway – you might just change your mind.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=TuL41ohlfZY#!
Malfleur (17:36)
Those figures are very interesting, what is your take on that? A three sentence executive summary, if you please. Choose your words carefully (as always).
Stephens, pictured above, said: “There is still a long way to go on judicial diversity.”
What the hell is “judicial diversity”?
Frank P 7th, – 18:05
“10% of the eligible pool, accounted for 18% of applicants and were 25% of those selected.” Says it (nearly) all.
“yet formed only 12% of the 26 appointments made.” Is this perceived as a problem?
Isn’t ‘BME’ a tautology?
I copied “pictured above” from another post. There isn’t a picture above.
Ostrich (18:19)
Almost. What ever happened to ideas of assimilation and the meritocracy?
Who decreed that division and systematic theft of our country and destruction of our culture should replace them. Divide and rule – oldest game in the book, bar one.
Well-Wisher
I have just read the link to the Daily Mail story about Rotherham social services.
I am now even more convinced that adoption and fostering decisions must be taken away from social services and the final decisions taken by a lay panel of councillors.
Social workers are more like a cult than a profession.
I wonder if this is one of the cases Christopher Booker is prevented from reporting by a court order. He has done more than anyone else to expose this type of scandal.
Couple of points made in this article from City AM which explains why we are in such an economic mess and also why it will be so hard to get out.
State sector head count goes down but cost of salaries go up!
53% of households get more from taxpayers than they pay in taxes!
http://www.cityam.com/latest-news/allister-heath/careful-chancellor-there-good-austerity-and-bad-austerity
Both these groups have an incentive to vote Labour until the money runs out.
Widdecombe was my MP. Certainly 100 times better than Helen Grant who was shoehorned in. But towards the end she seemed to lose interest and principle and be more concerned with celebrity.
Peter from Maidstone
Maybe our system tends to attract theatrical types. Someone once described politics as show business for ugly people.
Cameron got the leadership because he was able to deliver a speech/script without notes ,a very actor like skill. Blair was a very Amateur Dramatic type, which is no doubt why the Bar attracted him.
PfM 7th, – 20:47
“But towards the end she seemed to lose interest and principle”
Well, I guess after years of seeing her strong Christian principles pooh-poohed, and getting no practical support from her party, looking at the fast approaching cliff edge, even a personality as strong as she could become dispirited.
“Both these groups have an incentive to vote Labour until the money runs out.”
Well, it has…so they should learn…and change. (in my dreams).
Does anybody else think that Bossy Boots Hiliary’s visit to N. Ireland has initiated an Ulster Spring?
Ostrich, I am just not convinced that principles are abandoned so easily just because there is opposition. In such as case they are not principles. Anne Widdecombe had started writing novels quite a long time before she left politics and went on Strictly Come Dancing etc etc. Can principles be given up so easily? Why has she not ever sought to be a rallying point for conservatism? It is too late now I guess. But why not become a political commentator of the right and keep attacking Cameron etc?
I was disappointed by her choices.
Further BME successes:
http://www.newenglishreview.org/bloga.cfm/blog_id/45199/One-fifth-of-males-at-youth-jails-are-Muslim
“Friday, 7 December 2012
One-fifth of males at youth jails are Muslim Bookmark and Share
One in five young men in youth jails is Muslim, an increase of nearly 25 per cent on last year, figures released today show.
The proportion of youth offenders in custody from black and minority ethnic communities also rose three percentage points to 42 per cent in 2010-11, according to the report by the chief inspector of prisons.
Around 17 per cent of the population of England and Wales is non-white, while it is estimated that about 5 per cent of people in the UK are Muslim
The annual review of children and young people in custody showed that the proportion of males in young offender institutions (YOIs) identifying themselves as Muslim in 2011-12 rose to 21 per cent from 16 per cent the previous year and 13 per cent the year before that.”
Malfleur (23:53)
I note that Alexander Boot has inadvertently (?) answered the questions I posed to you in my comment (18:05 today). I think I agree with him and suspect that you do, too.
http://alexanderboot.com/content/what-price-multiculturalism.
Empirically, I found in yesteryears that indigenous loyalty was in general a strong automatic deterrent against crime; most crime that I dealt with was committed by those of alien origin or extraction. Or as my old granny would have indelicately put it, generally speaking one didn’t shit on ones own doorstep.
Unfortunately in recent years the overall propensity to commit crime has become part of the counter-culture war, so more of our own have been sucked into the cultural corruption, particularly those crimes involving the supply and abuse of dangerous drugs. The patois of our young generation, derived from a mixture of West Indian and Afro-American drug gang culture, propagated through rap music and the like, also lubricates criminal behaviour. Immigration has been a fillip for crime and has caused a pro rata increase. Unfortunately, official crime statistics are unreliable as there are myriad reasons for, and ways of, massaging them.
Anne Wotana Kaye 1
December 7th, 2012 – 22:08
Unforgettable was the moment a couple of years or so ago when a protester shouted at the American Secretary of State and elicited one of her Gorgonesque glares: “Hey, Hill! Where’s Bill?”
David Ossitt
December 6th, 2012 – 19:48 I have frequently wondered about your surname, and the happily-ending tale which you tell above mentions Leeds; I am spirited back three-score years to my grandmother’s living room which faced towards a town not a million miles different in spelling from your name, ‘appen!
ArchiePonsonby
December 8th, 2012 – 04:11
Hi, Archie, I know Bill had been a naughty boy, but I felt pity for him facing that Gorgonesque glare at breakfast! 🙂
PfM 7th, – 22:47
“Can principles be given up so easily?”
I guess that, after a long career in parliament, never getting a significant promotion, being publicly reviled when she took principled stands in those limited areas where she was given responsibility, finding her rulings reversed by her gutless superiors, (and all of this pre 1997) she must have found it very pleasant when she stopped batting her head against a brick wall. The party had moved away from her stance a long time previously, and she wasn’t prepared to compromise by moving with it.
So, I don’t believe she has ever given up her principles, she simply keeps them to herself now.
“Cameron got the leadership because he was able to deliver a speech/script without notes , a very actor like skill. Blair was a very Amateur Dramatic type, which is no doubt why the Bar attracted him.”
In hindsight I wish DD had got the leadership. The left would still hate him for his conservative values but his championing of freedom is sorely needed now that Cameron and Co appear to be following New Labour’s authoritarian, lefty-moralising, “we know what’s good for you” script. Also he would not have drawn the Eton posh-boy jibes. DD’s style of politics would have kept us in another place, grounded and practical, which is good for conservatives. Cameron’s trendy metropolitan elitism, with its ageist innuendo, is bad news.
There was a recent photo of Cameron and Osborne in shirtsleeves in some Whitehall war room, with Cameron handing a whiteboard pen to Osborne. It summed up exactly what is wrong with that pair and the current notion of government. The image was of senior in rank but immature in experience corporate marketing middle managers, immersed in jargon, scribbling some ghastly brain-dump sloganeering in a “blue sky” session and pretending they are “where’s it at”. A nation is not a whiteboard and they are not there to be middle managers dreaming up scams and gimmicks. Pretending that they can scribble a strategy on a whiteboard for the benefit of all the men, women and children of these islands is beyond demeaning.
But it’s not even strategy in the proper meaning of the word. It’s plotting a devious route in a futile attempt to pre-empt a media barrage, to outfox opponents engaged in the same tedious charade, to tweak rather than innovate, to nibble at government around the edges of the all powerful Political Correctness and the EU that really call the shots, to cherry pick and champion trendy causes for barely 6% of the population and to avoid frightening the horses, in this case the gobby lobby of lefty minority pressure groups, quangos and fake charities that suffocate the vibrant life out of a once assured and confident nation. And above all its pretending that they could and should exercise some sort of determination of outcome – not even trying to herd cats but just laying out an unproven whiteboard theory of herding cats.
From the Beeb this morning:
“Simon Hughes probe over donation”
Oh, yeah?
Well-wisher 8th, – 10:32
There was a recent photo of Cameron and Osborne in shirtsleeves in some Whitehall war room, with Cameron handing a whiteboard pen to Osborne. It summed up exactly what is wrong with that pair and the current notion of government.
A photograph is but 1/125th of a second. When a modern camera takes up to 5 frames per second, each nuance of a fleeting expression or gesture can be captured on a different frame. A canny photo editor can easily select whichever instant in time reflects his political bias.
I wouldn’t credit any photograph with any significance beyond the the organised sequence pixels it contains.
Ostrich (occasionally)
It had nothing to do with fleeting expressions but captured the duo standing in shirtsleeves, with whiteboard pen and whiteboard. That situational combination does not lie, however fleeting, and created an immediately resonant impression from having spent a good few years up close and personal with similar idiots who believed destiny could be controlled through a whiteboard, “blue sky” sessions and (forgive me) f***ing five year plans.
“…The battle for Israel is also the battle for Britain and the west. In turning against Israel – the forward salient of the titanic struggle to defend civilisation – Britain and the west are turning against themselves.”
Simple, obvious, profoundly true. Just how stupid are we?
http://phillipsblog.dailymail.co.uk/2012/12/jewish-students-running-gauntlet-of-hate-welcome-to-21st-century-britain.html
From The Mail’s excellent Amanda Platell on Obama making the gruesome Vogue Editor Ann Wintour US Ambassador to Britain, “And I thought we were supposed to be their ally!”
ArchiePonsonby 04:41.
Hello Archie I know the town well; Ossett, I spent what was possibly the worst six months of my working life there as MD of a subsidiary company of Ready Cut.
Nothing wrong with the town but I should never have taken on the job.
There can’t be many politicians who are held in as low esteem as Ed Balls, in fact he is probably now reviled more than his master, the sad, mad, bad Gordon Brown.
This pompous bully whose shenanigans in the Commons are a disgrace, all the more so because the popinjay of a speaker turns a blind eye to these antics or even actively encourages his mischief making.
Well this silly man made a perfect fool of himself when he stood to reply to George Osborn after the autumn statement, it had been his intention to stand and tell a lie by disagreeing with a fact the Osborn had said but he said the exact opposite of what he had intended, this caused much mirth in the house and discombobulated this bully.
What did he do to amend matters, well he could have said ‘I made a mistake’ not that anyone would have believed him, he could have laughed at his own error but this prime nasty bully did none of this, what he did do was to visit various BBC studios the next day in order to elicit sympathy from the public.
He went on air (and the disgraceful BBC let him) to explain that his stammer a stammer that he says he can normally keep in check let him down and that is why he misspoke (the BBC’s labour lovey-doveys never challenged this lying bastard not once) nor did they play the tape that would have proved that he did not stammer during his speech not once.
He accused the opposition and those of his own party who laughed at him of mocking one who has a disability; he spoke in a breathy whisper all the more to attract the listener’s sympathy.
He is a bumptious fraud and should now be mocked at every opportunity.
Ostrich (occasionally) (10:34).
Yerrss! Like me you’re no doubt inferring that the donation (to whomever) preceded the probing. Cash up front is the rule in those transactions, as satisfaction post facto is not always assured.
Recorded on Friday last the first episode of a three-part documentary depicting life at Westminster Abbey, then watched it this evening from my lounge so that I could simultaneously observe, through my west-facing lounge picture window, a fantastic sunset reflected from skimpy high clouds, after a day of crisp clear skies: one of the best sunsets in over a decade from my current vantage point.
This BBC programme is an excellent record of over a thousand years of glorious heritage encapsulated in that ancient awe inspiring edifice; a fitting tribute also to its constant thread of stewardship and its service to the backbone of our nation.
The only sour note was struck by David Cameron, who no doubt having heard that the documentary was under way, cunningly invited the choir to perform at No 10, thus securing a photo-op for himself to be included in the record for posterity. The choirboys were obviously deeply impressed by the ‘honour’, thankfully not realising that they were being used for the vainglorious PR satisfaction of a poseur not fit to be included in such distinguished company.
Other than that – a thoroughly enjoyable hour: a reminder of so much that we have to be thankful for as a nation; but also sadly, how much we have to lose if the current usurper of the office of Prime Minister and his acolytes continue to leach away our sovereignty to the EUSSR.
For those of you that didn’t catch it – I’m sure it’s on the BBC i-player; thoroughly recommended. It reminds us that midst all the political, cultural and architectural vandalism over the centuries, there remain pockets of apparently indestructible evidence of our history that will see off the transient attempts of self-serving overweening ambitious upstarts, who would, like Essau, sell it all for a mess of pottage.
Sri – ‘Esau’ – typo. Villain that he was, mustn’t spell his name incorrectly!
Plus ça change?
Aspects of a London coffee house in the 1740s, as described by Smollett in “The Adventures of Roderick Random”, which I am currently reading.
CHAPTER XLV
…My next care was to introduce myself into a set of good acquaintance: for which purpose I frequented a certain coffee-house, noted for the resort of good company, English as well as foreigners, where my appearance procured all the civilities and advances I could desire. ..
…”…As for these gentlemen (meaning the prince and ambassador), who make so free with our constitution, laws, and genius of our people, I think they might show a little more respect for their benefactors, who, I must own, are to blame in harbouring and protecting, and encouraging such ungrateful vagrants as they are.” At these words, the chevalier in green started up in a great passion, and laying his hand on the hilt of his hanger, exclaimed, “Ah! foutre!” The Englishman on the other hand, grasping his cane cried, “Don’t foutre me, sirrah, or by G—d I’ll knock you down.” The company interposed, the Frenchman sat down again, and his antagonist proceeded—”Lookey, Monsieur, you know very well that had you dared to speak so freely of the administration of your own country in Paris as you have done of ours in London, you would have been sent to the Bastille without ceremony, where you might have rotted in a dungeon, and never seen the light of the sun again….the doctor, who it seems, had felt the rod of power, grew pale as death, and assured us all, that he had no intention to affront any person or people. “Your principles, doctor,” resumed the old gentleman, “are no secret—I have nothing to say upon that head; but am very much surprised, that a man who despises us so much, should notwithstanding live among us, when he has no visible motive for so doing. Why don’t you take up your habitation in your beloved France, where you may rail at England without censure?”
…professing myself an utter stranger in this part of the world, begged he would have the goodness to inform me of the quality and characters of the people [in the coffee house]. … he therefore complied with great satisfaction, and told me, to my extreme astonishment, that the supposed young prince was a dancer at one of the theatres, and the ambassador no other than a fiddler belonging to the opera. “The doctor,” said he “is a Roman Catholic priest, who sometimes appears in the character of an officer, and assumes the name of captain; but more generally takes the garb, title, and behaviour of a physician, in which capacity he wheedles himself into the confidence of weak-minded people, and by arguments no less specious than false, converts them from their religion and allegiance. He has been in the hands of justice more than once for such practices, but he is a sly dog, and manages matters with so much craft, that hitherto he has escaped for a short imprisonment.
CHAPTER XLVIII
[To the coffee house]…where we found Mr. Medlar and Dr. Wagtail disputing upon the word Custard, which the physician affirmed should be spelt with a G, observing that it was derived from the Latin verb gustare, “to taste;” but Medlar pleaded custom in behalf of C, observing, that, by the Doctor’s rule, we ought to change pudding into budding, because it is derived from the French word boudin; and in that case why not retain the original orthography and pronunciation of all the foreign words we have adopted, by which means our language would become a dissonant jargon without standard or propriety? The controversy was referred to us; and Banter, notwithstanding his real opinion to the contrary, decided it in favour of Wagtail; upon which the peevish annuitant arose, and uttering the monosyllable pish! with great emphasis, removed to another table….
Frank P 8th, – 16:45
O-oh, my twisted mind went further than that, musing on whether a donation could be liquid, and where it might be delivered?
An old colleague sent this to me today, I checked with him for permission to post it here and have removed his surname and email address, buy the by contrary to his email he is politically to the right of Genghis Kahn.
Note that the silly woman does not deny any alagation of wrong doing.
David I thought you might like this, an email from our local MP
Subject: Fwd: You’re Rental Property
The e-mail below was sent by Lisa Riordan our local MP to me when I
complained about her renting off her property in London.
My e-mail was sent months ago but for some reason only was sent to me
today I bet I messed her weekend up!
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: RIORDAN, Linda
Date: Sat, Dec 8, 2012 at 3:38 PM
Subject: Re: Your Rental Property
To: Ken
I have to say Ken I am disgusted with your email that you would rather believe the right wing press be fore you actually speak to me.
I am available to talk to you
Sent from my iPhone
Dear Mrs Riordan
I read with shock about your rental arrangements in London and I was
really sad and disappointed that someone in the labour party who
represents my town had (after the huge MP’s expenses scandal) seen fit to stoop so low as to indulge in what can only be called a shabby
‘sleight of hand’.
It beggar’s belief that you could do this!
Have you no feelings for the people of this country who are suffering
in these years of recession?
What was your thinking regarding this matter?
You are no better than those greedy city types who speculate make profits and laugh at the rest of us.
I never thought that I would see a labour politician who represents Halifax sink so low.
I have always voted labour but this really is the end.
I am absolutely disgusted with you.
Ken
Well-wisher
These White Board SWOT analyses are only strategy in the micro sense of the word, suitable for a corporation and to some extent a political party but not a nation.
That is what we lack, where is the strategic vision and planning for the UK and its people as a nation?
53% of households receiving more in benefits than they pay in taxes. Public sector headcount goes down but public sector salaries go up. National debt increases year on year. Immigration brings in large numbers of people who do not share the cultural values of the host community. A criminal justice system that is based on assumptions of a settled homogenous society. An education system that fails basic “fitness for purpose” criteria. An energy policy that hardly rates the term policy. A growing population with no thought to infrastructure.
It goes on but the shared link is a lack of any coherent national strategy.
What is our optimum population? 50 million?60 million 70 million? Should we try to be more self sufficient in food and energy and what are the consequences for optimum population? What military capability is likely to be needed in 15 years?
Just downloaded Roderick Random to read myself.
James102 8th, – 20:02
“What is our optimum population?”
Oh, about 50 mill.
James102
“…where is the strategic vision and planning for the UK and its people as a nation?”
That is the question.
Unhappily, the strategy appears to be to dismantle the nation by all means possible in the interest of the EU. Consequently, the question does not get put.
There is an interesting piece in the DT. I’d be interested in folk’s comments on it?
The West is signing its own death sentence
Capitalism is, by its nature, dynamic. George Osborne’s attempt to engineer the ‘perfect society’ undermines the logic of the free market….
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/georgeosborne/9730434/The-West-is-signing-its-own-death-sentence.html
Peter from Maidstone
December 9th, 2012 – 09:14
Of course Janet Daley is right; she almost always is and is one of the few sane journalists, it seems, who is allowed to say it through an MSM outlet. She is one of the grown-ups of the Fourth Estate. It is what the best of the American economists have been stating forcibly for years and are now only allowed to propagate through Fox News and its subsidiaries – which are vilified and mocked by the remainder of the MSM in the US – and even Murdoch speaks with a forked tongue, because he orchestrates a different message in every country in which he operates. The Right thinking Internet gets it, but seems powerless in the face of current political power throughout the West, most of which has been secured by smoke and mirrors and downright gerrymandering. So-called ‘democracy’ is now more of a joke than it has ever been; the ‘powers that be’ hell-bent on implementing the aims of the Long March, which now appears to be leading every nation off the ‘fiscal cliff’ (barmy slogan – what’s wrong with ‘to economic ruin’) and in conjunction with the Islamist ‘Brotherhood’ implementing a scorched earth policy throughout the globe. The Marxists then appear to believe that their Utopia will arise from the ashes. The Islamists are certain that their ‘Twelfth Imam’ (or whatever nutty salvation it is they preach to the ‘faithful) will arrive and dominate the world as predicted. Both of these ideologies are utterly delusional, but the masses that have been brainwashed by the incremental propaganda of each element for generations will continue to support their aims, by orchestrated mob violence when necessary, because of the ‘goodies’ promised.
What poor Janet fails to do, like the rest of us who have been pointing this out (with much less clarity, admittedly) for decades, is to produce an action plan to restore sanity. It’s easy to delineate madness – more difficult to cure it. The only comfort I can derive from history is that madness inevitably destroys itself (and sadly the sanity around it), but humanity survives anyway and sanity eventually returns to the upside of humanity’s never ending cycle of the rise and fall of empires. Grit your teeth folks and try to hold on to your individual sanity in order to observe and report the proceedings. And have whatever fun is available for as long as you can.
James102
“…where is the strategic vision and planning for the UK and its people as a nation?”
It is here, in the Daily Telegraph: Boris Johnson and Michael Gove join new Tory campaign group to push for same-sex marriage.
I think that promoting homosexuality in Primary schools (Primary schools ‘should celebrate homosexuality’ Telegraph, 16 Sept 2008) will result in intelligent children realising that those adults accepting this propaganda are delusional; the stupid children will be even more confused than they were before! Oh, and angry!!!
Are parents who are, logically, and have been since the beginning of time, heterosexual, going to go along with this agenda, so that their children will not be punished for an innocent remark when they go to Primary School, or will they start refusing to send them to the state run propaganda machines?
Fortunately, our children are above the age where the state can enforce attendance at school, but I do wonder where we are headed.
“Duchess hoax call radio hosts ‘fragile’ as Metropolitan Police make contact”
Can we believe them?
It could be a PR exercise to set up another prank?
Frank P @ December 7th, 2012 – 17:59
I finally had an hour plus of time to watch the Bill Whittle link in which he develops some from his monologue on the night of the presidential election which I think you posted around that date. This is a summary – Whittle is worth following:
:
Part 1 – Is the Country worth saving?
1. Surrender?…No, dishonourable; debt to previous generations
2. Escape? …no, nowhere to go
3. Virtue…virtuous people can govern themselves.
Part 2 – The Messenger and the Message
1. Republicans don’t publicly believe their own values -Stockholm syndrome.
2. Go forward to our traditional values.
Whittle will be virtual president of the USA from Inaugural Day, what president SHOULD say
3. Beyond Politics
Industrial revolution model of big government obsolete as not fit to govern people; we are going from vertical to horizontal to a post government future and the entitlement model is going away.
.the people who vote left must feel the consequences as they vote for socialism in a capitalist society thus cannibalising capitalism; big state socialism makes it virtually impossible to run a business..
.protect our own people through networks.
4. Whittle will start website called the Common Sense resistance about a series of networks to allow people to get in touch with people.
.how to get some of the things we want from government without going through government?
.a cultural Inchon (Korean war metaphor)
.voluntary micro taxes – e.g. the Free Frontier Foundation – selling pride.
For more Bill Whittle go to pjtv.com
I think for us on this site there are some modest lessons here, together with Theodore Dalymple’s point on effecting cultural change in the last paragraph in his interview with Peter.
I’ve been reflecting on Theodore Dalrymple’s interview. And he seemed to be saying that telling the truth, even to a sick man, was a necessary aspect of healing, even if it did not have immediate effects.
I am wondering about the value of a website called “It’s The Truth”, there are some domain names free. This would look at the various issues that are being presented in a deceptive and deceitful manner and would produce pages on each topic which were easy to read but robustly based on statistics and evidence.
Not only could this deal with major issues such as Global Warming and Immigration etc, but it could also challenge various positions as they appear in the news.
What do people think? I would try to get some of the right people to produce pages on their speciality subject. But I’d also want to try and see if it would be possible to develop a well populated site and launch it as an authority rather than grow it as something amateur.
Malfleur (12.31)
Good summation. I agree with your last paragraph.
RobertC (11:13)
Problem: perversion, wearing the skimpy camouflage of ‘love’, has now been legalised. Denouncing perversion as destructive to society has been criminalised. From that much flows – as was the intention of the propagators of the counter-cultural hegemony which has not taken deep roots in Western Culture. The useful idiots of homosexual activism (subversive perverts) are mere tools of the wider movement. Though some may have been dealt a bad genetic hand, or have been corrupted in their formative years, we should not pity – but scorn their practices; ostracism of those who behave criminally, or in an anti-social manner is a component of protecting family based and social mores. Governments of the West are now colluding against the family as the basic unit of society and subversives are trying to transplant the family with depraved substitutes.
With regard to your comment at (11.21) the basic problem behind the King Edward VII hospital problem was a failure on the part of the Royal Protection Unit to implement protocols in conjunction with the Security Risk Managers at the Hospital, in order to ensure that all calls regarding the Duchess were properly vetted and channelled. If this had been done then the spoof would have failed at first base.
That is the job of her Protection Officer. This was yet another lapse after a chronicle of such breaches of RPU security. The fact that ‘collateral damage’ was this time the result, makes the failure even more culpable. Everybody knows why the call was made and can see how easy it was achieved; wasting time on ‘investigating’ the Australian end of the jape just means a boondoggle for some detective – an early summer holiday in the Antipodes. The investigation should concentrate on (a) why a strict protocol wasn’t implemented and supervised at the hospital and (b) how it was that the nurse who died wasn’t given more support after the incident and (c) whether there are other factors in the nurses life that made (b) even more necessary. Any intelligent Coroner will pay little heed to the behaviour of the disc-jockeys, who were behaving as they always do, trying to create ratings, increase the number of idiots who follow their programmes. If the Royalty Protection Unit can’t protect the pregnant Duchess against the idiocy of couple of shock-jocks – what hope has she, or any of the Royal Family got, if a Muzzie terrorist target them? If I were HMQ I would rip a new fundamental orifice in the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis and the Home Sec. AND Boris who is the notional arbiter of police affairs. How many more cock-ups have to occur before someone of high rank at the Yard gets shit-canned for gross incompetence? It is more by luck than good judgement that we haven’t had a Royal Casualty since Mountbatten; that and the lack of intelligence of those inimical forces who would do harm to the Queen, and her family. And not all of those are aliens – as evidenced by the output of Murdoch’s republican flavoured Sky News.
Sad to learn that Sir Patrick Moore has died. When the media seems filled with so many nasty, mediocre nobodies, this giant of a man will be sorely missed. I hope he finds a heaven lit by stars and universes to discover.
Anne Wotana Kaye 1 18:30
“Sad to learn that Sir Patrick Moore has died.”
A truly eccentric English man of the old school he will be sorely missed.
AWK1 9th, – 18:30
“Sad to learn that Sir Patrick Moore has died.”
My Dad (who taught astronomy in the ’30s) gave me one of his books in the mid ’50s. I loved it, but I fear I disappointed him when he tried moving me on to Sir James Jeans. At the time, when the ‘Big Bang’ theory was being viewed with great suspicion and Fred Hoyle’s ‘Modified Steady State’ theory was the new kid on the block, the kicker for me was that none of us, in this generation or several to come, might ever get to visit any of them, except (perhaps) the moon. I couldn’t see any point in obsessing about it.
That’s what happens when you introduce abstruse science to a kid before he’s ready for it. Now, it fascinates me.
Noa @ December 8th – 14:17 and Peter from Maidstone @ December 9th, 2012 – 09:14 and 14:14
The shameful story appears to be all of a piece, interlocking. The “vastly complex and expensive system of state intervention” erected in response to the industrial revolution is seen by Bill Whittle is, though much touted by western and other governments, collapsing in face of the emergence of a new model responding to the logic of the information revolution. There is clearly going be an unhappy transition through ” times that try men’s souls”. Can anti-semitism of the shameful nature reported by Melanie in Britain survive the disasters anticipated by Janet or does anti-semitism endure all weathers? In the meantime, big government seems to be conjoining forces inimical to free speech and liberty, and can be expected to seize on this malaise opportunistically, and those forces are thus drawing on ideology and polemic which attack Judaeo-Christian traditions, institutions and successes. A prominent example of this is of course the ideological war being waged against us by islam, which is documented here: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/frontpagemag-com/silent-conquest-the-end-of-freedom-of-expression-in-the-west/
I would also recommend that thread for its link on to:
http://adinakutnicki.com/
Adina Kutnick is a Zionist Conservative and contributes independently from time to time to the likes of Front Page and American Thinker. She is a feisty opponent of and commenter on the red/green alliance.
In response to Peter from Maidstone @ 14:14, I would say that any website which aims to tell the truth is valuable and that we should support Peter’s idea for an ancillary website if, as I believe we shall, we can identify a funder to facilitate its setting up.
In that connection, light is cast on the importance of funding in the conversation between Glenn Beck and David Horowitz at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q6afrpaMck
where Horowitz’s book “The New Leviathan” is discussed. The subtitle of the book is “How the Left-Wing Money-Machine Shapes America’s Politics and Threatens America’s Future”. Particularly interesting are the tables which Beck screens showing the imbalance of funds available to the “progressives’ and the conservatives, considerably in favour of the former.
Sir Patrick Moore
I remember we discussed his robust and resolute view of the Germans here some months back.
Ostrich (occasionally)
December 9th, 2012 – 23:10
Sadly, parents can never get it quite right.
Verity
Time to get out of Dodge…
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/12/09/Former-U-S-Marine-Chained-To-Bed-In-Mexican-Jail-On-Trumped-Up-Gun-Charge
http://www.theospark.net/2012/11/midway-trailer-film-by-chris-jordan.html
The dumbing-down of education was necessary if the watermelons were ever going to get away with attacking society via ridiculous fims such as this. Now the sheeple do not possess the mental agility to see through the greenie clap-trap.
IF recycling was a valid and necessary process, why aren’t the industrialised nations out there, in the middle of the Pacific, harvesting this free bounty of useful raw material?
The answer is really simple. Without the populations of the Western nations doing all the donkey work of pre-sorting this rubbish, then paying vast sums, such as the landfill tax, to subsidise re-processing, none of the so-called green recycling initiatives will stand up. And not even the Chinese will sail across the Pacific to hoover up this material, which, if the greenies were to be believed, forms the basis of a whole new economy.
To be truly green, all wastes with a significant calorific value should be burnt in local incinerators with combined heat and power plants attached to generate electricity and provide either area heating for housing or process heating for adjacent industries.
Or, if the geology allows (as most of the UK does), bury it and allow it to decay into Methane, a useful gas for generating power.
And all without a windmill in sight.
Warning! Common Sense Alert! Conservative MP David Davies utters sensible observation, without any reference to a survey!
Most parents don’t want gay children, claims Tory MP David Davies.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9733497/Most-parents-dont-want-gay-children-claims-Tory-MP-David-Davies.html
He said that existing laws allowing same-sex couples to have civil partnerships could be changed to ensure full equality without going as far as church weddings.
But as we and, I expect, he, all know the goal isn’t equality. Also, note that there are no comments on this Daily Telegraph article, so as this is not a ‘comment less’ subject, what is it that has induced this shyness?