And in this particular the ENGLISH are the most remarkable of any people, that perhaps ever were in the world.”

Hence the satire. I hoped obvious? TBF I did misuse old Biggins a bit, but I’ll never forget his attempt to cancel cyclists on National TV (back in the day before random tweets were National News)

Let us also not forget the English Character as noted in Elgar’s Land Of Hope And Glory:

Thy fame is ancient as the days,
As Ocean large and wide:
A pride that dares, and heeds not praise,
A stern and silent pride;

Irony. Which reminds me, today I’m going to make like Elgar and go ride my bike on the Hills. Clear the mind a little. This social media lark is arduous.

I’ve also heard (and felt) a little too much (especially this last 19 years) of that ‘stern and silent pride’ and it’s beginning to affect my mood.

Okay, you two are making me laugh, cry and think… all at the same time. Don’t stop.

BillMC.

Thanks for providing some accurate statistics. If you do the maths using your own statistics you’ll find that an age increase of 3 years from the age of 78 to 81 expressed as a percentage means that there’s a 4 % increase in life expectancy over the last 20 years. Then consider that people only get to vote for 50 or 60 years of that life cycle so let’s make that 8 %. Then factor in the fact that older people are far more likely to vote and it’s quite easy to see that the age factor has an influence of 10 % or more.

If you can’t see the difference that a double digit shift would make then perhaps you are wearing your face mask over your eyes and not your mouth. I’m not questioning the statistic that you provided just your ability to interpret it in any useful way. You’ve literally just furnished me with a fact which proves my point to a greater degree than even I initially thought. If you were looking to cancel me then you’d have done better to keep quiet.

You mention black women straightening their hair. I mentioned that my partner had shared with me some of her experiences in the workplace over the last 20 years. She straightened her hair for that entire period, knowing that turning up to an interview with an afro hairstyle would not have improved her chances. Likewise she adopted her English first name rather than her African name when filling out the job application. Luckily for her her surname sounds French and seeing as advertising agencies recruit from a young, cosmopolitan, international crowd beeing perceived French was not a disadvantage.

Over the last 20 years the UK may have seemed a lovely tollerant place to you but for others they were having to conform against their wishes They were fearfull that some of the progress that had been made since the 80’s could be rolled back.

Well. Brexit, Windrush and over policing during covid have rolled things back to the 80’s so maybe black people feel they no longer have anything to lose and are prepared to voice that which they have bottled up over the last 2 decades.

Imagine yourself making that comment about black women’s hair in a room full of black women and then imagine the death stares you would be receiving. Now imagine yourself saying the same thing on a cycling forum. Perhaps you are saying those things here because you find it a safe space that you know is overwhelmingly white male? Then consider how welcome a black woman might feel if she was into cycling and decided to join said forum.

You might not like what I say Bill but I would be happy to repeat any comment I post on here in any company. I think you and some others on here would be wise to do the same.

Squirelking,

Apologies, I’ve done the same thing as I did last time, posting a quote without context to be a little provocative.

The quote comes from Lindsay Graham, the famous Republican Senator from South Carolina. He was being asked about Nascar banning the Confederate flag from Race meets. The full quote goes something like this:

” Nascar is a business that’s trying to expand their fan base and the truth is, the Confederate flag just isn’t good for business.”

Dear forum. As an aspiring journalist I could do with a few easy gigs. I’ve been informed that should I ‘find’ a woke-tweet that is somehow critical of a white celebrity then I could theoretically break a BIG story. A snowball of an avalanche sort of thing.

Anyway, I was wondering is possible to have one or even multiple Twitter accounts under assumed name/s? Not because I’d do such a thing…but because, well just because. Because right now I’m calculating that just four or five ‘woketweets’ will convince Good Honest Unwoke People that the overwhelming mindset of ‘the left’ (currently anything between 76% to a whopping 98% of the Left according to a now-deleted Tweet allegedly originating from the US) is certifiably insane and will believe anything as long as it suits their agenda.

Malvern Rider,

This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a re-tweet.

Its the “Some Arsehole on Twitter” phenomenon.

Actual journalism is hard, all that tracing and verifying sources, I mean who can be bothered?

Fact checking? Nah sod it.

Examining sources from both sides of an argument? Eh! come again!

Understanding statistics and only using peer reviewed sources? WTF are you on about man we’ve got papers to sell and clicks to generate!!

So Adele “under fire for cultural appropriation”. From who? Oh right SOME ARSEHOLE ON TWITTER!

Ah, well played Malvern Rider. Thanks for pointing it out, I’m autistic so the humour went over my head initially. In response to the above question here’s a checklist:
1. Do you know a minor celebrity or government official?
2. Pick a letter of the alphabet to use as a user name, Q is taken.
3. Join a proud boys or bois club.
4. Pick a minority to blame.
5. Create a story that’s neither provable or unprovable.
6. Hashtag simple meaningless acronym that’s no longer than two syllables.

So Adele “under fire for cultural appropriation”. From who?

The tombliboos. That’s who.

Hair is an affordable art form. I visited a mate in Tafara township and the Eastern highlands, Zimbabwe, there was no white people for miles. Hair and clothes took all sorts of styles and colours. Every time I see my pal’s daughters’ snaps on FB from Gaborone I see something different: straight, afro, corn rows, blonde with a purple patch, I don’t think they’re thinking colonialism but unrestrained self-expression.
Reggae is linked to military marching band music, skinheads borrowed from bluebeat and reggae, Red, Red Wine was written by Neill Diamond but was a hit for Toots et al. Culture is a melange and getting tied up in knots about authenticity and cancellations is exactly the sort of divisive waste of time that the system prefers people to pursue in times like these.

Red, Red Wine was written by Neill Diamond

I never knew that! Every day’s a school day.

My two Van Morrison ‘Celtic’ favourites and his least (Astral Weeks and Veedon Fleece) was performed largely by black jazz musicians. Tickles me no end. Increasing life expectancy can only be meaningfully understood in the context of age distributions in a population ie in a stable population it might be significant, in a growing population (migrants tend to be young) less so plus there are wide regional disparities in life expectancy and that needs to be factored in.

Apologies, I’ve done the same thing as I did last time, posting a quote without context to be a little provocative.

The quote comes from Lindsay Graham, the famous Republican Senator from South Carolina. He was being asked about Nascar banning the Confederate flag from Race meets. The full quote goes something like this:

” Nascar is a business that’s trying to expand their fan base and the truth is, the Confederate flag just isn’t good for business.”

I get that.

I just don’t understand why owning a gun shop makes racism good for oh wait I get it now.

Never mind, I got there in the end!

(I assume you’re not implying gun owners are inherently racist but rather that section of society are more likely to be arming themselves to the teeth)

Squirelking,

I thought that Lindsay Graham quote was rather clever, pivoting the argument away from cancel culture towards the very American culture of business. You have to give him credit for trying to defuse rather than inflame a situation.

And you’re right about the gun shop analogy, I’m not accusing gun shop owners of being racist, just that they stand to gain if others stoke up the fear.

Whilst were on the gun question, I’d like to pull up another quote, this time from Condoleezza Rice. She said she supported gun ownership because she remembers her father and his friends standing on their porches, holding shotguns as the KKK rolled through the neighbourhood in their pick up trucks.

Same thing, different side.

The key isn’t more guns, it’s obviously less racists.

Yeah I like that NASCAR quote for that as well.

Go on then Bill, factor all those factors in, what answers do you find? I think I’ve laid out a pretty clear argument that an increasingly ageing population will result in an electorate that is skewed proporrionally towards the old.

I think Malvern Rider and Faerie explained for us the most likely route the Adele story took before it hit the front page. A piece of news that was neither attributable or provable that was ‘designed’ to cause division and outrage was hung out there like a piece of bait for us all to nibble on. And you bit.

Consequently you’ve enlightened us all with a treatise on African hairstyles. Very informative but it doesn’t cancell the fact that many women have had to conform to white norms whilst operating in the workplace over the last 20 years. Things have changed over the past 3 years because many black women have simply said f*** it, I am who I am and I’m not playing these silly games anymore.

The tombliboos. That’s who.

Just gone on twitter, all I’m seeing is people outraged by the percieved outrage of other people who seemingly don’t seem to exist, not in any real numbers anyway.

There’s a huge amount of pressure on black women to lighten their skin too, all to fit in to a western ideal of what’s considered beautiful and wholesome.

In India, there is very much a trend for celebrities, particularly women in cinema, to lighten their skin, for cultural reasons, ie cast, because lower-cast people, peasants, who do manual labour outdoors have darker skin, naturally, so to be seen with light skin shows they’re a better, higher cast/class of people. Also in China and Japan, for similar reasons.
This was also true of Europeans as well, it wasn’t seemly to have a suntan, that was for poor people; the advent of foreign holidays turned that around, a nice tan showed that one had enough time and disposable income to travel and lounge around and get a tan, unlike those poor shlubs slaving* away in offices and factories.
*And I did consider the use of that word, white people were slaves too, at least a million or so.

Where does the great orange one fit into all of this? The Victorians so abhorred proletarian sun tans they took arsenic tablets to make their faces white. In a wealthy area with a Tory MP if life expectancy increases it will not mean more Tory MPs but maybe a greater majority, an area with more immigrants is likely to have a lower life expectancy but be more likely to vote Labour. Question is how do the ratios stack up.
A bespoke tailor around here reckons Trevor Macdonald is the best dressed bloke on telly. Does he have to be better to be equal or has he just got a taste for good clothes and he can afford them?
Joyce uses the N-word in Ulysses he is also known to be a socialist and a nationalist (not a national socialist). Should we employ contemporary definitions of prejudicial language to ban the book or re-write it, or not?

Joyce uses the N-word in Ulysses he is also known to be a socialist and a nationalist (not a national socialist). Should we employ contemporary definitions of prejudicial language to ban the book or re-write it, or not?

What would you like to happen with Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’, BillMC? You brought it up? Maybe Tweet about it? It might find an ornery, non-too-bright, militant righter-of-wrongs or two who will retweet and demand for the book to be banned.

Then hungry journos can write an op-ed for, say ten newspapers and I dunno about 40 altright youtube videos whining how ‘the left’ have gone to the dogs utterly barking and want all of our babies to be black while white people go live in gulags? With any luck this will ensure the country swings further right and further towards some kind of civil/race war. Or at least far right enough to begin sacking comedians who criticise Trump. Meanwhile nothing will have nor ever was going to ever happen to Ulysses, but you might be left feeling pretty special about it all!? Effectively ‘cancelling the left‘ and ‘black people‘ in an all-too-perfect and meta-ironic masterstroke.

Or at least far right enough to begin sacking comedians who criticise Trump.

> standing ovation <

You’re on fire. Keep going!

Countzero, I’m wondering what aspects you considered when writing your post. Whilst the caste system is an ancient social structure it was the British who formalised it and made it central to our administration there. Between 1860 and 1920 we segregated Indians by caste, giving the better jobs to christians and whiter looking people. We changed the policy after social unrest and protests to give lower castes some work in the government, which became illegal in 1948… When India became independent. British successive governments still use divide and rule, and blame BAME people for all our woes.
Like you said, it is unfashionable to have brown skin, even here in Britain unless you’ve paid at least a month’s salary for it.
As for slavery; yes even Europeans were enslaved along the Barbery coast, although the figures were estimated using an unorthodox manner previous academics have put it in the 10s of thousands at the most. If it were around a million, European slavery is still a small, small fraction of the Atlantic slavery committed by the British which a conservative estimate puts at about 12 million.

Pro-government comedy on it’s way. See! The Left again. And the foreigners. Always go too far. Spoil it for the rest of us. Now it’s bitten them in their anti-white, anti-male, marxist, racist arses </satire>

Tim Davie, the box-fresh director of the BBC, wants an overhaul of comedy shows which are deemed to have too much left-wing bias. Good news because, dammit, pro-government comedy has been stifled for too long. Where are all the jokes about how annoying it is tripping up over homeless people when you’re on your way to Soho House?

And my goodness I cannot wait for a comedy show which really tells it like it is about refugees paddling over and living in Windsor Castle with the Queen, forcing her and Philip to camp under the gazebo.

What’s that? Such comedians don’t exist? What tosh! We had that nice Jim Davidson with his hilarious **** jokes, do you remember? Only he got “cancelled” because we all went too far to the left, political correctness went mad and we weren’t allowed to point at LGBTQ+ people and laugh anymore.

Bernard Manning should be given his own prime-time show. The left bang on about “prejudice”, yet for years they banned Manning from having his own show merely because he is dead.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/bbc-left-wing-comedy-tim-davie-mock-week-news-quiz-a9699511.html

BBC news are getting all excited about the “no audience and no choirs” last night of the proms again. At least they mentioned in passing the Coronavirus element of this (no audience and no choirs) but still sold the “U Turn” to find some convoluted way to have a singer blasting their droplets into an empty area of the hall as some kind of political shift towards the real people of the UK.

Pro-government comedy on it’s way. See! The Left again. And the foreigners. Always go too far. Spoil it for the rest of us. Now it’s bitten them in their anti-white, anti-male, marxist, racist arses </satire>

Tim Davie, the box-fresh director of the BBC, wants an overhaul of comedy shows which are deemed to have too much left-wing bias. Good news because, dammit, pro-government comedy has been stifled for too long. Where are all the jokes about how annoying it is tripping up over homeless people when you’re on your way to Soho House?

And my goodness I cannot wait for a comedy show which really tells it like it is about refugees paddling over and living in Windsor Castle with the Queen, forcing her and Philip to camp under the gazebo.

What’s that? Such comedians don’t exist? What tosh! We had that nice Jim Davidson with his hilarious **** jokes, do you remember? Only he got “cancelled” because we all went too far to the left, political correctness went mad and we weren’t allowed to point at LGBTQ+ people and laugh anymore.

Bernard Manning should be given his own prime-time show. The left bang on about “prejudice”, yet for years they banned Manning from having his own show merely because he is dead.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/bbc-left-wing-comedy-tim-davie-mock-week-news-quiz-a9699511.html

For a bit of balance here’s James himself just last weekend scolding the BBC for (sic) censoring Land Of Hope And Glory. He also has an encouraging message for black people. (but he’s not giving them any money, before they ask)

Prepare to leave this Lycra-Leftie echo-chamber of Brush-With-Fate Billsheviks, hoary old Marxists and Cynical Cycling Communists. Prepare to enter the Balanced Broadcasting Corporation. (ok Youtube) AKA The future – today. Be sure to read the comments. Soak them up. The future, today. Relax. It’s all going to get much better once the BBC is sorted out. The Government-sanctioned comedy shows will allegedly resemble the youtube comments beneath Jim’s video.

(Jim gets pertinent @ 4mins in)

Kelvin,

The post you dropped earlier concerning Elgars’ feelings about how the tune he wrote had been subverted into triumphant nationalism reminds me of how Chamberlain saw the same danger in the potential VE celebrations that were proposed back in the 50’s.

When Boris talks of ‘our cringing embarrassment about our history, traditions and culture he would do well to remember Elgars’ words. Or maybe he just sees Elgar as a ‘woke’ snowflake.

In the modern context, (As it was for Elgar in 1918) the lyrics have all the charm of a crowd of football hooligans singing ‘you’re going home in a f***ing ambulance. Watching someone wave the union Jack whilst singing that song gives the Union Jack the appearance of the Confederate flag. Thats not me making a judgement thats the singer / waver making the conflation.

Oh, and I’m wondering what piece of whataboutery BillMC is going to throw at us next, this week its been black hair, James Joyce and Trevor McDonald’s swag, It was Sonia Boyce a couple of weeks back. I suppose if I just unblock Talk Radio from my Youtube feed then that should give me a heads up.

Cheer up, it’s kept you busy during a down time.

*STOP PRESS*

I know it doesn’t have the redrag/e pulling-power of some Twitter user commenting on Adele’s follicular arrangmemt… but this new one still has 9 views.

Nine.

Poor man lost his job. Just for voicing his private thoughts about using live rounds on BLM. He got gulagd. Imagine if Jo Brand had said that she wanted to cut Boris Johnson’s head off with a frozen copy of The Independent? She’d just become MORE famous! The liberal left would be falling over themselves to offer her work at children’s parties, black people fetes and gulag-opening ceremonies.

9 views? If it hadn’t been for that leftist cancel-culture rat-pit known as Twitter then he’d still be in a job. And that other guy. We have become a totalitarian PC lefty multiculti shithole and we’ve been saying this every day in every way since before George Formby became Gary Coleman. When will they learn? </satire>

Still. 9 views?

rees-mogg just played some of Rule Britania in the commons

that will give his target demographic a raging semi or 2!

i wonder if all this concocted fuss will see the proms actually get decent viewing figures, its not really part ouf our culture, gets 10 million less than Im a celebrity & vast majority of viewers are 75+

the navel gazing jingoism of it all is rather depressing

Concocted yes. But now … more real than real. More emotionally powerful than any truth

Jonathan Swift had that part pegged. Again:

“Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect: like a man, who hath thought of a good repartee when the discourse is changed, or the company parted; or like a physician, who hath found out an infallible medicine, after the patient is dead.”

its not really part ouf our culture

At least all the pro-EU flag wavers won’t be in the audience thanks to Coronavirus. Putting those elites in their place… worth going bankrupt just to piss off all those people traitorous scum who actually like and attend the proms.

Sorry.. I might have missed the memo about the proms no longer being about liberal elites and a waste of TV Licence fee money, and instead central to the lives of everyone who’s never attended one, or even listened to one on the radio.

At least all the pro-EU flag wavers won’t be in the audience thanks to Coronavirus.

I thought there was to be no audience, and no live choir but a symphonic rendition of the Anthem, because of Covid19 distancing observance blackgaymarxistgulags

Or the patriots/royalists/promulgators could have sung in the streets and houses along to the orchestra. But nah…better to concoct/keep revving the LEFTYCANCELCULTURE narrative, send death threats to the conductor, and then bully the BBC into a

1. ‘compromise’ (strike one, a stab in the front) then
2. accuse it of doing a ‘U-Turn‘ (strike two, a stab in the back) and then demand the BBC be
3. ‘cancelled’. Strike three and on the ropes.

That Jonathan Swift fella, he’s just another woke snowflake. Just like Elagar, who wrote a banger but turned into a total wuss when he saw a the audience at the proms sing the ditty with such nationalistic, jingoistic triumphalism that it made his stomach turn as he reflected on the millions slaughtered during the war that had just ended.

Seems like being ‘woke’ is nothing new, just a new name for common decency.