Yeah, I really don't get the constant whinging about them from motorists. By definition they can only possibly affect you if you break the law by speeding. There's laws against destruction of property and stealing and murdering people too. You know how I avoid getting done for them? I don't destroy property, steal or kill people. Simples. What is so objectionable about that?
Take it with a large pinch of salt Steve. None of us ( for I would fall into the camp you mention ) would truly wish anyone dead, but it's a measure of the absolute hatred her name still brings out in those who got the shittier end of her particular stick.
It's difficult to mourn when you think of just how many lives this woman destroyed, callously, to such little purpose, cos as others on there have rightly pointed out this golden age of Thatcherism we're gonna be hearing about endlessly in coming weeks is about as golden as a spray painted turd. If only her legacy could be buried with her but no, it lives on, to be lived out in the daily lives of those still suffering the consequences thanks to her and her latest incarnation at the head of the Tory party. I piss on the lot of 'em. She was truly a callous, loathsome woman who cared not one bit for those she cut adrift in a sea of misery. Why should those people pretend to care now she's dead? I'm not into revisionism or hypocrisy. I make no apologies for it.
Made Britain great again? There is an argument to be made that the current financial crisis stems largely from the Reagan-Thatcher era that massively deregulated the financial markets, and our current housing benefit bill that everyone's so up in arms about stems from the sale of social housing, the proceeds of which were prevented from being reinvested in stock to replace it forcing tenants in to private sector properties owned by rapacious landlords. Brilliant move Thatch, just brilliant.
Anyways, I don't normally celebrate a death but she was 87 and had a good long life so will hardly feel bad eating jelly and ice cream in her honour at the street party I'm planning.
Bejaysus Cubes, you're a bad, bad man. I'm fucking traumatised after clicking that! WTF!?
Paddy, hello! Trust you're well.
Yup, hope you had a good one Paddy, and everyone else celebrating. Hope the emoticons you used weren't literal Paddy. You can't be falling down drunk at twenty past one, there's a full afternoon and evening to go at man. ;)
Might seem an odd choice to some but pretty much anything by Joy Division. I go through phases usually with bands, tend to play new discoveries to death and then rarely play them again once the novelty's worn off but Joy Division never get old, rarely out of a playlist. Ian couldn't sing and Barney couldn't play guitar for shit but there's a stark, minimalist beauty to songs dealing with the darkest subject matter. Transmission is guaranteed to get me bopping along, New Dawn Fades still gives me goosebumps every time, Love Will Tear Us Apart is a genuine classic, talk about going out leaving the audience forever wanting more. New Order have never got near it, let alone bettered it. Just not in the same league without Ian.
The Verve's A Northern Soul doesn't get played as often as it used to but still pretty much a constant these nearly 20 years since it's release. It took Urban Hymns to really launch them into the top flight, arena filling territory, but for me the earlier album is them at the height of their powers. It's a dark album again, describing a world where what joy there is exists only fleetingly, the default condition of the character depicted throughout what's almost a concept album is disappointment, loneliness, rage and despair. What lifts it is the sonic brilliance of Nick McCabe's guitar work over a tight as a gnat's chuff rhythm section. Pure musos.
Oh and Foxylady, I don't do much classical, what there is of it is relatively modern stuff. Philip Glass, the soundtracks to Mishima and Koyaanisqatsi are stunningly beautiful. Likewise John Tavener's The Protecting Veil. Gorecki's No. 3 ( Symphony of Sorrowful Songs ) is as haunting and moving a work as you're likely to find I think. Keep meaning to dig out more but never quite get round to it.
I guess I'm like Foxy: I know a little bit about lots of things, most of it useless unless you're pub quizzing. I dunno where I've accumulated most of it, I just have one of those memories that soaks things up like a sponge and organises stuff so I can access it later almost unbidden sometimes. I wish I could get rid of some of it, there's a lot of rubbish in my head I'd rather not have in there sometimes.
Stuff I could talk about would be literature, consider myself pretty well read. Lot of the classics, much originating in French, German, and Russian as well as English. Here again though I would struggle to go into too much depth with a lot of it. Languages, or the foundations of language something I'm into too, how English relates to French or Latin for instance. Also the way that we use language to interpret and structure our experience of the internal and external world and define our place in it, how what we imagine to be our innermost self is nothing but a linguistic construct, a story we tell ourselves to be analysed, played with and changed at will. Also history I guess, some military history, some from the more social and economic angle, working class history especially, ties in with an interest in ( especially Marxist ) sociological theories of politics and society also. Important to know how we got where we are today, and why. Without a proper sense of the past we are doomed to repeat it all too often, we don't seem to learn very well as a species sometimes, even when confronted with the obvious.
Don't usually do the e-petition thing, not sure I've ever seen a useful result but if anyone thinks the Misuse of Drugs Act is a failed weapon in the 'War On Drugs' ( TM Richard Nixon 40 odd years ago, still losing FFS ) in urgent need of review you may wish to put your name to this:
It's got the 1000 votes needed to get this on the agenda in theory, but being a completely taboo subject for front benchers any extra push we can give it is good.
This is not about drugs BTW. This is about failed policy and wasted tax-payers money in these austere times we live in. It's about drug users who are gonna find themselves criminalised once again in a coupla days for trying to stay legal. Like this:
Causes endless confusion this Stevie ( a bit like you in that respect, what with the endless bloody name changes every week and what have you! :P ) . . . .
Devon is twinned with God's Own County. Twinned with. Like wot Leeds and Munich are. We let Devon have a bit of the Godliness is all, let 'em bask in the warm glow so a bit rubs off on 'em, you know. That's all.
Minxy, just want to thank you for an excellent series of posts. Too much to comment on really, except to say integration is a bit of a two-way street, as you demonstrate. We're not always very welcoming of immigrants, whether they're first generation or whatever. Some are actually fearful of them, not because of what they do or how they live, but simply because of what they are. They represent the 'other'. Easy to see how and why ghettoisation develops quite often given the attitudes of some 'indigenous' Brits, white flight, social / housing policies that encourage them to an extent, the safety in numbers thing, etc. And then we complain these people live in ghettos and don't integrate. No shit?
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:rotflmao: :rotflmao: :rotflmao: 