Right you right-on, yoghurt weaving, yurt-moulding, hippies*, line up and be counted. You’ll love this one 😀 :

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/22/thomas-the-tank-engine-children-parents?CMP=twt_gu

the constant bent of messages about friendship, work, class, gender and race sends my kid the absolute wrong message.

* Im looking at YOU, junkyard 😉

Some of the comments are brilliant. “Peak Guardian has been reached” really tickled me.
RM.

We threw out one book where an engine was bricked up in a tunnel for being naughty , and have race issues with the troublesome trucks. Crankbrat loves them though.

The constant message of a Calvinist work effort seems to have ensured our boy at three is wiling to do the washing up, help empty and demolish sheds and stack wood . He seems to have skipped the blind obedience to my authority bit though . Maybe I should get a Top Hat and pot belly.

Maybe I should get a Top Hat and pot belly.

I believe the OP has one of these two according to a recent thread. 🙂

That is brilliant!!! What bloody herbs has she been smoking??

Peak Guardian has been reached

.

Best quote of the internet.

What will be the equivalent “Peak STW has been reached”?

Holy glitch.

I can’t stand the **** tripe..

negative message after negative message, all themed around guilt and pride and resentment

utter **** hateful drivel.. medieval dross

I assumed it was a parody when I started reading, kept expecting there to be a punchline, or a sly nod to the reader that all was not as it seemed, but sadly not. I think I actually laughed out loud at the race connotations of the different coloured steam.

I can’t stand the **** tripe..

negative message after negative message, all themed around guilt and pride and resentment

utter **** hateful drivel.. medieval dross

Can’t work out if Yunki is refering to Thomas the Tank Engine or The Guardian?

I think it’s fair to say that the original books have not, in some ways, aged well 😉

…but that article is also hilarious.

Maybe I should get a Top Hat and pot belly.

Enviroracist!

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/16/vegans-stomach-unpalatable-truth-quinoa

The engine itself is a phallic symbol of oppresion and the murder-rape-mind-prison of capitalism. You’re better off poking your kids eyes out and locking them in the cellar.

oh dear, we were about to book our kids tickets to meet Thomas and the Fat Controller at Kew Bridge Steam Museum

ill bet thats how nick griffin started out

For the record, all the “villains” on Thomas and Friends are the dirty diesel engines. I’d like to think there was a good environmental message in there, but when the good engines pump out white smoke and the bad engines pump out black smoke – and they are all pumping out smoke – it’s not hard to make the leap into the race territory.

😀 😀

That’s actually beyond parody

And they ALWAYS crash, every bloody episode they crash. Steam trains are shit!

Edit for the steam train enthusiasts: 😉

Thankfully children don’t have the ability to read between the made up lines and come out with the bollocks the Guardian writer has.

Same with anything Enid Blyton produced. Yes, they may not have aged brilliantly, and things may have changed, but all small children think about is a bunch of trains/fairies/friends/rabbits/cars having fun.

The books are god awful but my 17 month old loves them.

And the TV show theme tune……

Thomas is a f^&$wit of the highest order who continually ballses things up through dimwitted incompetence but then lucks out at the end through other people helping him out and his need to be seen to be doing something.

I find it the worst possible example to be setting kids. mini-Speeder-1 does love it though so who am I to judge?

Thomas is nothing compared to Temporary Postman Pat. Always skiving at home when his special delivery phone rings, messes up the Special Delivery so it’s late, everyone else rescues the situation and he takes the credit – then has the barefaced cheek to say “special delivery – mission accomplished”. Should have been sacked years ago. And he’s a ginger.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6jtLAnqiiA[/video]

…and people say Daily Mail are masters of Clickbait.

This is the best comment from the comments section;

“Thomas bringing Jews to Auschwitz was the last straw for me.”

Bluddy heck!!! hahaha

Right you right-on, yoghurt weaving, yurt-moulding, hippies*, line up and be counted. You’ll love this one

It is written by a reverend what did you expect I am OUTRAGED by it 😉
TBH I liked them and the kids liked them..
I never did the socialist deconstruction of it I am being honest
I am sorry I let the side down and i will immediately hand myself in as a dissedent in need of re education
FWIW it is clearly very dated because it is old but that is about it and i assume the article is a piss take.

We threw out one book where an engine was bricked up in a tunnel for being naughty

He was bricked up for being vain as he would not get his coat dirty in poor weather IIRC. Good message of MTFU and get on with it IMHO 😉

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/16/vegans-stomach-unpalatable-truth-quinoa

I have to confess to having read that [ elsewhere] and have never bought it since.
Damn Stoner may have a point in his OP 😀

Thomas is nothing compared to Temporary Postman Pat. Always skiving at home when his special delivery phone rings, messes up the Special Delivery so it’s late, everyone else rescues the situation and he takes the credit – then has the barefaced cheek to say “special delivery – mission accomplished”. Should have been sacked years ago. And he’s a ginger.

In the early days Royal Mail used to use Postman Pat in a lot of their promotional and charity work – until it dawned on them that he’s basically as serial xxxxup and not really a ringing endorsement for their service.

Has she seen the new Mr Men Show ?

They’ve regionalised the accents so Mr Rude is an obnoxious Frenchman, Mr Messy has a strong scouse accent, incompetent Little Miss Magic and Mr wandering hands Tickle are Irish, while monobrowed bully Mr Stubborn sounds exactly like Gordon Brown !

They didn’t they spot that black coal does all of the work as well…

Got to love these stuck up ****s

Good grief.

Calm down. It’s a kids story about trains, not a George Orwell discussion point.

It goes both ways you know

Even the cartoon character Peppa Pig pushes a weird feminist line that would be closer to the hearts of Labor’s Handbag Hit Squad than the pre-school audience it is aimed at.

http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/piersakerman/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/tired_abc_needs_to_broaden_its_horizons/

imported a Marxist-Leninist personality from the – I quote – “bias-ridden BBC.” This latter-day Germaine Greer is none other than Peppa Pig, who “pushes a weird feminist line that would be closer to the hearts of Labor’s Handbag Hit Squad than the pre-school audience it is aimed at.”

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/13/not-only-is-peppa-pig-a-feminist-shes-probably-a-communist-too

Some times people need to calm down and

before people start calling the PCC Im sure the original article is a pisstake and I wouldn’t place too much emphasis on clickbait designed to generate ad revenue.

Thomas is a f^&$wit of the highest order who continually ballses things up through dimwitted incompetence but then lucks out at the end through other people helping him out and his need to be seen to be doing something.

See that’s what’s wrong with the current books. To maximise revenue there are all sorts of shite stories and characters.

Go back to the old books – some strong moral compass stuff in there, as long as you’re not a lentil knitter.

Thomas books are allowed in this house, but the DVDs were chucked out long ago. No way am I having my children grow up sounding like Ringo.

could be worse, they could drum like him.

Fair point

The Rev Awdry wasn’t a fan of the TV series. Apparently he tried to base his books around real railway operations (as far as is possible with talking steam engines). He said the TV series departed too far from what would happen on a working railway.

I liked the ones he did based on the Snowdon Mountain railway. The illustrations were all recognisabe locations.

But that Guardian journalist is having the last laugh. She is being paid to write that load of absolute bollocks.

I’m thinking of doing an article on the post-feminist deconstruction of Moomintroll. Should be worth as few quid. I’ll probably have to die my hair a trendy colour and get a few piercings to get it taken seriously though.

Is Michael Angelis the best drummer in the Beatles?

The book haven’t aged well as times have changed. Fine moral tales now seem petty and nasty. The basic storyline? Know your place and do what your told.

But as toddlers stories about trains? There’s far worse.

Chuggington is worse.

I’ve not seen the recent TV shows but I saw a “new adventures” thing a while back which seemed to be written by people who’d never read the books or even the older TV series… Weird.

I like overanalysing stuff. Like Moomins, I saw a critique which slated moomins for its opressive gender profiling. Look, a female character called Moominmamma, she’s been reduced to a job title, her only place is to raise kids! But, er, let’s ignore that his dad is called Moominpapa.

I think I’m going to make sure my kids only watch Rugrats and the Rottentrolls.