nealglover – Member
Since 15/5/12 by my reckoning.
But “sleeping” until main ID was banned.

People keep saying that, I do post lots on other forums, but not so much here until now, so who is/was it you think I am/was, TJ or whoever ‘Fred’ was?

Cougar – Moderator
I’m still fairly new here
Since 15/5/12 by my reckoning.

Yes just about a year, but didn’t post much to start with..

Is it ready yet?

edlong – Member
wgm

I’m with you now. Calling me “PC” wouldn’t offend or be racist (how could it be?), however if you called me “pikey”, “****” or “****”, on a cycling forum or anywhere else, then it would be. So, in summary calling people names on a cycling forum IS racist, if the names that you are calling someone are racist ones. But that’s not what we started off disagreeing about, was it? I think the disagreement is about whether “pikey” is racist. I maintain that it is.

OK yes on this we agree and it is in my view the whole nub of this thread, which come to think about jolly old argumentative Junkyard diverted down this path with the whole ‘pikey’ discussion. You know my opinion I do however accept your point and that you have the backing of the law, something until now I was unaware of, wrong in my view for all the points I made.

Perhaps you should be tasked with producing the official list of banned words and insults, jokes like my Religious Nutcases and Irish and then the thread be made a sticky for all the world to see, then we won’t have to live in constant fear of the humiliation of the ban hammer.

deadlydarcy – Member
The black in snukker is worth the most points. But, then again, it could be argued that snukker is a racialistical game anyway.

@whitegoodman, that comment about Ameruca being somewhere “we sent the Irish to breed” is the proper language of an unenlightened Neanderthal shithead. That you didn’t get a short ban for it says a lot about the tolerance of the moderators here. Sometimes it’s best not to ban folk for a while because, like many before you, they’ll continue to shoot themselves in the foot.

So, I’m trying to understand why you would find that anything other than what it was, a joke, used often enough, and in context with what I believe was a thread with a fairly anti religious sentiment from memory, so just so I know and don’t offend your sensibilities in future (I’m still fairly new here) exactly what bit offended you, the Religious Nutcases, or the Irish bit? Are you an American? I’ve used that joke to lots of them to their faces only to be greeted by healthy laughter. So why does it upset you, sufficient that you would be so insulting to someone you’ve never met and would be extremely unlikely to do to my face? It’s easy keyboard bravado, isn’t it?

Ever heard the one about the convicts and Australia?

edlong – Member
wgm, no, I don’t feel insulted being called “PC”. I take it as recognition that I’m bothered to make the effort to use language in a way that doesn’t insult or offend my fellow human being.

You didn’t answer my question though, which was why you think that calling people names on a cycling forum wouldn’t be racist?

Well that’s good news, so me calling you PC doesn’t upset you, neither is it racist, which answers your second question in that it depends what you call them doesn’t it, call me a Roadie and I’ll be upset.

I’ve also had another think whilst away at lunch and decided Cougar does indeed owe me a bike now, that deleted witticism which I have used on a couple of other forums with no ill effect due to it’s obvious jocular intent, was deleted due to Political Correctness of the type that first elicited this thread.

Cougar – Moderator
Just so we’re clear,

The comment which was deleted stated that America was “a place we sent Religious nut jobs and the Irish to go and in breed..” and you’re asserting that this is a good example of moderation due to political correctness?

Wow, that’s me bang to rights.
😆

No, point taken that’s me banged to rights, I’d even forgotten what it was, very true though…

So did it have gears? 😉

edlong – Member
calling people names on a cycle forum aint racism
Really? Which part? Do you think that calling people names isn’t racism? Or is it that it ceases to be racism if you are on a cycling forum when you do it?

It’s wether or not the place is more or less boring because the use of such terms gets folk banned. The list grows, it now includes Pikeys, the debate is also wether or not the ‘offended’ should or should not hold sway here.
So now here is another, do you and your fellows Junkyard now consider it an insult to be called PC?

Please don’t suggest that is now a racist remark .

Do you actually even regard yourself as PC?

Cougar – Moderator
I’ve not seen the emails that prove cougar owes you a bike yet either
Didn’t you know, you can make things true if you simply keep repeating them every second post or so.

You’re not trying to welch now are you? Is it clean yet? I hope it has gears.. 😉

FYI
Singletrack Forum <forum@singletrackworld.com>
Apr 12

to me
No need for that. Deleted.

In relation to: http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/americans-are-they-really-all-religious/page/2#post-4882205

If you think this message has been sent in error please contact moderator@singletrackworld.com.

Sent to whitegoodman (Richard (White) Goodman) by the Singletrack moderators.

Racism is a foul thing, unfortunately part of the human condition and an extension of human tribalism, which is so perfectly exposed by soccer fans, it’s the same thing, comes from the same base instinct that our tribe is better than theirs.

My skin colour at certain times of the year has caused me to be directly exposed to it, along with a would be son in law, who also had the misfortune to be a Muslim at the height of the 7/7 period and was stopped and searched countless times simply travelling between University and our house, but the worse instance was in a pub on Romney Marsh, as ever a den of the ignorant and inbred, one of them came up to us poked him and said “ooh I’ve never touched black men before I just want to see what they feel like” two or three years ago in modern day Britain, you couldn’t make it up if you hadn’t been there, made me sick to the stomach.

But calling people names on a cycle forum aint racism, not in my view anyway, but I thank whoever deleted that post and educator for his support.

I’ve decided if I do continue to return here, which I undoubtedly will from time to time because it is a fun and entertaining place, I’ll just have to keep my ignore list up to speed and not let myself get wound up.

Did that fella that directly called me a racist get moderated or have I not looked far enough back? I hope he wasn’t banned or even warned.

I’m not offended by types like that, I’m more offended by those here that engineer the argument to the point that the weak minded would then make that assumption.

Here’s another view against the ‘pikey’ name calling..

Fascists, they’re not all bad are they, so it’s not fair calling them Nazis is it? I mean not all Nazis were bad were they? But I bet that bike that Cougar owes me, the PC brigade here don’t mind that Farrage fella being called a Nazi, now do they?

Double standards of the Left wing brutally exposed there, lets hear the argument out of that one.

edlong – Member
being a ‘Traveller’ is a lifestyle choice
No. No it isn’t. I’ve already explained this a number of times and quoted case law on it. Being born into a travelling family, part of a travelling community, one that is ostracised by pretty much all of the rest of our society is not a lifestyle choice, it is their ethnic origin. People who are born into Irish traveller families but end up living in houses will, in my experience, still identify as Irish Traveller when asked their ethnicity

In your experience? What is that then, you go round asking them do you? Nobody asked me, part of my family were Romany a while back I don’t identify myself as a traveller. Travellers that ‘go to brick’ their expression not mine, cease to be ‘Travellers’ they’re in the community, pay council tax, have their bins collected, their waste disposed of in a sanitary fashion rather than leaving it by the side of the road or in someone elses garden, it’s also wrong to label all Travellers Irish, that is a sweeping generalisation, if you lived where I live you’d realise, but you don’t, my town is full of gypsies from all over Europe.

The law as it currently stands was varied by people like you, bleeding heart liberals who don’t happen to have a yard full of them living next door, London Metrosexuals, Cherie Blair and the like, they’re gone now and you wonder why bloody UKIP is on the rise..

I have to go, it’ll be Goodwin next and I have work to do..

edlong – Member
Could you explain why you think there is a difference?

Because the term **** as well as being the description of an oil paint pigment, was an extremely unpleasant word to describe black people, black people will always be black, colour cannot be changed, being a ‘Traveller’ is a lifestyle choice and something not immediately apparent about a person, nobody has to be a Traveller, black folk have no choice, neither do short people, but that doesn’t stop them being called dwarves though does it?

Junkyard – lazarus

I will chip in for the taxi fare..

Would you be so kind?

Thanks, 70 quid should do it, I wonder if you could send it, Cougar will have the address just as soon as he’s finished cleaning the bike he’s going to send me…

I’ll let you know how I get on, honest guv, could do your drive as well whilst i”m at it, I’ve got some tarmac left over from another job…

We used to have an expression as kids, “sticks and stones may break our bones but names can never hurt us”.

The point I was trying to make, was that there should be no harm in using terms such as ‘Pikey’ to josh with each other in ironic banter without getting banned for it.

i.e. suggesting for instance that say Hora was being a bit ‘pikey’ in some humorous situation.

This came about because of the original suggestion that the forum was becoming boring precisely in the way that this thread has developed, in that the PC brigade weigh in with their ‘offended sensibilities’ and go into long diatribes as to how name calling is racist in virtually any circumstance.

I’ve made my position, I have no respect whatsoever for the ‘Travelling Community’ and reserve the right to call them names and if that means that under law I should now be locked up then so be it, just as well I am anonymous.

So that must also mean calling Scots Jocks, Irish Paddy, Welsh Taffy, and every other light humoured name calling falls within exactly the same categorisation, so if the mods were ever to let them get their way, then the place would be very boring, then no-one would come then the problem would be over.

You need different opinions to create discussion, but it’s a sad day when folk are banned for them at the hue and cry of others, what happened to Nigel Farage in Scotland yesterday an exact example of lack of tolerance actually verging on racism if you think about it.

I wonder if it’s because this place has a high percentage of Scottish posters, are they more intolerant than Southerners I wonder, are we Southerners more casually racist without realising it, who knows, but it does make the place interesting just as long as it is allowed to continue and one group prevented from dominating as they appear to be at the moment.

I’ve said enough on the subject and will try and bow out now before I do actually ‘offend’ anyone for real.

The word Chav, is actually more offensive than ‘Pikey’ given it’s recent use came as the description public and private school kids gave state school pupils. Back in the day, chav was a simple inoffensive greeting that street kids might use to each other, “alright chav?” fifties and early sixties, so now it used to insult any lower order group breaking ground in a tall poppy syndrome kind of fashion.

Either way, it is still extremely politically correct to demonise the use of slang from a googled pulpit of pseudo educated offence in my view purely to make someone feel uncomfortable on an internet forum and then to link it to racism.

The problem with ‘isms’ they are selective where their application should only apply when it is beyond the individuals ability by actual firm body type, to change, i.e.skin colour.

If I were born in Pakistan and white, would it be a problem referring to me as a ****?

What about extremely tall people and calling them lofty, or short people being called a dwarf?
No PC ‘ism’ label for them? Yet equally as hurtful, probably more so than for the white ****, he could pretend he wasn’t, so plausable deniability.

That’s the problem with the easily offended PC, very narrow in their ism selection.

Yet a group who leach off us, pay no tax yet use our schools and hospitals, steal by their very nature, not contributing to a society deliberately yet still cherry picking the bits you need, is theft, so yes, all Pikeys are thieves. Show me a traveller who pays council tax, income tax and NI and I would not refer to that person as a ‘pikey’.

Try to make me feel bad about the frivolous use of the word in describing someone acting in a mildy derogatory manner in jest and do it to my face in real life and I’ll assume your having a ‘bubble’.

That’s got to be it really, it has at least pointed out the lack of boredom here once ‘they’ get going, the PC brigade.

molgrips – Member
FFS I can’t believe people hav a problem with this.

Yes, there are a lot of travellers committing crimes. Maybe the majority, I have no idea.

But once you start generalising based on race or social group then yes you are being a bigot or a racist. That’s the whole point. That’s what prejudice means – judging somoene based on some external characteristic.

Dude were you an Alien you could apply that logic to the entire human race.

They occupy that planet and kill each other in order to destroy it’s resources..

This would be all well and good, were it not for the fact that we’re not debating an actual ethnic group, we’re debating (and proving the forum aint boring)that the offended PC brigade (I.e. you lot) make the place uncomfortable for the casual pub banter brigade(i.e. me). I have no idea who even coined the term ‘Pikey’, it used to be ‘Gippo’. Either way it may be a sweeping generalisation of a group, lifestyle or ethnic have it either way, but it aint Racism its a slang term often used in jest.

No more than calling all STW’rs nobs, a sweeping generalisation I have heard in real life which caused me to investigate further, you’re not, only those that disagree with me are… 😉

Nothing anyone has said here, other than deliberately attempting to be inflammatory, has argued anything to disprove the fact that by and large the group referred to as ‘pikeys’ live outside of our society, contribute no tax whatsoever, are often guilty of petty crime and in some instances serious organised crime, they are not just Irish or English, they can be Albanian, Romanian, Czech and from all manner of races, hell I even have a Romany in my own lineage and yes I often refer to myself in a self deprecating manner as a bit ‘pikey’.

It ain’t racial it is a lifestyle choice, one actually worse than that the unemployed are sometimes accused of.

They ‘moved in’ to my office car park once, as usual there was no help from the PC brigade and in the end after several weeks of theft, damage, blocked culverts from human faeces, and a spate of local crime the Army moved them on, the Police? Scared witless, difficult to serve a warrant on people of no fixed abode and of course they give you their name and address.
I’m currently awaiting a court case to another Major crime a vehicle I sold to a group (I hadn’t realised were Pikeys)which was used in a Major tobacco smuggling scam, which nets them up to 12 million a year, there’s a dozen or so of them, every now and then one of them goes down for a year, not bad money do a year inside and come out to a mil in cash, wouldn’t you?

So yes we have to protect their human rights, but do we have to be concerned about offending their sensibilities? I don’t think so, but that’s my opinion, you can maybe join that list of offended on their behalf, but that will all end though the moment they move in round your way, trust me.

Cougar – Moderator
I have to argue the “Pikey” v “****”,
And two short pages ago STW was accused of being boring.

And saying that “I hope you didn’t get that bike you’re going to send me off some ‘traveller'” doesn’t quite have the same ring does it? 😉

I have to argue the “Pikey” v “****”, the one group is a lifestyle choice, out side of the social norms whilst in some instances preying upon society, the other is a racial group and definitely an objectionable insult.

Some what shall we call them so’s not to offend? Travellers? They go to brick, it’s an option, their choice, they then pay tax like the rest of us, but all the time their lifestyle preys upon ours, in my view they are a legitimate target for base humour.

Had never voted tory in my life until the excesses of Blair and Brown forced it on me last go round, got that right then didn’t I? – Not.

Gove, tbh one of the better of a bad bunch, education badly needed a shake up, but he aint going to help them win, they didn’t make it last time and next time they’ll be in a world of worse problems.

I used to vote lib dem can’t see that happening again so it will be a wasted Green vote then, at least we got one in last time, if only the Greens would position themselves as the just left of centre party of choice they could make some considerable gains, but they like UKIP have got more than their fair share of nutters (including an ex wife of mine)muddying their cause.

binners – Member
That quote is Charlie Brooker

full article here

And its absolutely bang on! Some people seem to exist purely to take offence at everything

You do not have the right not to be offended!!!

Hey thanks for that, quality, was it really that long ago 2007? My how time flies…
Anyway I clearly forgot this bit.
‘but because it’ll upset them unnecessarily, and these readers deserve to be upset unnecessarily, morning, noon and night, every sodding day, for the rest of their wheedling lives.
which is what forums should do imo 😉 (they’d still come back for more.)

Miles off the mark there.

I guess, it’s just difficult to see the logic sometimes, being remote to it all, do forum types not meet and ride together ever then? I thought I read somewhere a while back that they used to..

molgrips – Member

Perhaps not racist directly, but you’ll be using it as a derogatory term I’m sure. You should be able to see why it’s a bad thing to use the name of a social group as an insult , surely?

You and me, Pub, after a ride we’re talking about that movie Snatch and having a laugh, now, look me straight in the eye and say that to me, whilst keeping a straight face..

I’ve come to the conclusion, from reading a lot more than I post, that this place has a small clique of those that are either in the vicinity of and ride with the powers that be or have at some point in the past and can pretty much get away with anything, whilst newcomers have a pretty random and unfair application of the rules. Those rules also in themselves are difficult to quantify, personally I might use the term ‘Pikey’ in real life with no expectation of anything other than light humour or riposte, does that make me racist, I sincerely hope not.
Having said all that it must be a total nightmare having to keep an eye on every thread in this much volume and we are living in tough commercial times, any threat to a businesses existence has to be dealt with, but that should be weighed with the need to keep the community engaged especially with the huge competition from other social media and diversions like actually going riding.

I must just post this quote I read somewhere (wish I’d written it) it sums up my feeling about people who go on the internet often anonymously and then get ‘offended’. I can’t even remember who to attribute it to it was a columnist or blogger, Guardian I think, doh the joys of alzheimers..

“I hate offended people. They come in two flavours – huffy and whiny – and it’s hard to know which is worst. The huffy ones are self-important, narcissistic authoritarians in love with the sound of their own booming disapproval, while the whiny, sparrowlike ones are so annoying and sickly and ill-equipped for life on Earth you just want to smack them round the head until they stop crying and grow up. Combined, they’re the very worst people on the planet – 20 times worse than child molesters

What happened to The Southern Yeti?

he always seemed to be cheerful as I recall, there are a few like him missing, I first joined up last year, I travel a lot and not always in good internet regions and it’s a bind using mobile devices, but coming back it’s a vastly different place to this time last year and I’m under a ban threat already without so much as a swear avoidance or alleged ‘ism’ of any persuasion, so where is my bike? 😉

Drac – Moderator

Are you both in the same office?
What office?

I assumed you were all in an office surrounded by a mountain of Fresh Goods, a miserable boss, demanding the heads of any offender likely to reduce the hit count, and breaking only to take a wheelbarrow full of money to the bank and that there were lots of you.

So does this mean you don’t know if he has got my bike ready to send then?

It took long enough to recognise the part they played and honour them.

Wasn’t there a thread here once with all the relatives of STWers that were in bomber command?

Anyone have a relative that was on this raid?

Drac – Moderator
possibly a sign the weather has improved and more people are out riding
It’s always like that in the morning but once people are at work or done their morning chores it sorts out, look now oldest is less than an hour.

Nope still 11 hours here (haven’t checked the bike one, will take your word for that.)

Has the other chap gone to get my new bike?

Are you both in the same office?

Have a yell through and check he’s cleaning it… 😉

Cougar – Moderator

And if you can find me an example of moderation due to political correctness, I’ll give you my bike.

Really? What kind of bike is it whilst I find you my two emailed examples…

Er would you be kind enough to clean it first? 😉

As a lurker turned poster more recently, I don’t think the place is more boring, it is definitely slower, there are 10 hour posts on the front page which there didn’t used to be.

It is definitely very heavily moderated, I had an email yesterday accusing me of trolling and threatening a ban when I’d asked a question that I guess some might have thought was obvious and pointless, but the answer to which I genuinely didn’t know on the Glencoe thread.

There are also some very argumentative pedants here that expect accuracy in an environment that frankly shouldn’t expect it.

I think the simple solution would be an ignore poster feature that other forums have, less work for the moderators and a boon for those allegedly easily offended.

Humour cannot always be humour without offending someone or other can it?

Shouldn’t a forum be like the sort of banter we engage in on a ride, or in the pub afterwards, I can’t say I’ve been on many rides without a healthy dose of piss taking, on everything from what I’m wearing to what other folk are riding, isn’t it what makes the world go round?

This thread could get interesting, amusing, then have a very short life which kind of sums it up really.

“Watching Badgers” seems appropriate here, they seem to be doing it on the Glencoe thread.

Lifer – Member
whitegoodman – Member
Which bit is rubbish?
All of it, the picture you paint is about as realistic as ‘Jerusalem’ or ‘Land of Hope and Glory’.

Yes, well that is the ‘picture’ we are discussing are we not? The breakdown of the English culture by Foreign incursion and the trend Left or Right encouraging it.

The point I’m making wether you accept or not that back then things were different and I have fond memories of the fifties, but then I was a child so everything would seem rosy to me. However it wasn’t foreigners that changed it, nor was it either the Right or the Left, it was both in their own way.

Right contributing to the greed malaise and the Left swaying the sexual permissiveness that is so abhorred by some religious immigrants.

molgrips – Member
slowly learning the pedant STW nature
It’s not pedantry, it’s pretty important not to be called English when you’re Scottish, Welsh or from Northern Ireland. Especially given the history!

Precisely why i used the term English and not British as I was being accused of by Junkyard who’s late coming to the thread has ceased discussing and entered his usual attack mode.

Junkyard – lazarus
Harold Wilson and the Labour Party gave us sexual revolution in the sixties
Who knew that the swinging sixties were down to the Labour party and that the fun loving pipe smoker was the heartbeat of the counter revolution and he even exported free love world wide to
You really want to know which part is wrong? REALLY?

Some people really do have some comedy gold views on this thread

No some of you clearly were not there, it wasn’t a counter revolution. Prior to that the previous administration under Macmillan and to a certain extent Heath attempted to suppress the trend. This being a thread about Right and Left Wing and their effect on what are we talking about here which is the alleged erosion of Englishness by other cultures.
You need to read the thread, understand then try and keep up. 😉

Whitegoodman you interchange English and British like they mean the same

Well I did quite deliberately, slowly learning the pedant STW nature, British includes Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales etc and their cultures are slightly different.

Use of the Term English in the same way as it is used to describe our language, I felt was probably the more accurate option, but then I should have known better than to think i could please everyone.

Lifer – Member

Absolute rubbish.

My opinion Lifer, I lived through it, so what would I know, I’m sure you are going to explain which bit of it is wrong..

Harold Wilson and the Labour Party gave us sexual revolution in the sixties, Margaret Thatcher gave us the financial ‘loadsamoney and greed culture of the eighties’ Manners just got eroded along the line.

I have seen men raising their hat to passing women, getting up on the bus to let them sit down, communities rallying around people in the same street in trouble or grief, having to get engaged before I could even stay in a B&B with my girlfriend.

Which bit is rubbish?

Cougar – Moderator
Why would you be uncomfortable with people doing their own thing?
Is something being imposed on you that you don’t like? That would be bad regardless of its geographical origin, would it not?

Where I live, the peal of church bells has been replaced by the caterwauling of Imams in minarets calling their followers to prayer. I can’t say as I particularly enjoy that (but before anyone plays the race card, I don’t particularly want to be woken up by church bells either, though at least that’s a relatively pleasant sound in comparison).

I’m all for a multicultural society, but that feels perhaps a little too invasive. If that makes sense.

I wouldn’t like that and personally do not like Islam and think it is a mistake to appease and accommodate it here. No other religion is quite as aggressive and no other religion (other than Christianity of course) causes quite as many problems where it flourishes. It’s not racist to discuss religion and anti religious sentiment, there are all manner of races that fall for the rhetoric of Islam and personally and now I’m going to exhibit a right wing tendency towards them, I’d have that particular religion banned.
On the other hand Hinduism, Buddism are peaceful orders that offer real spiritual assistance to their followers and inner peace and should be encouraged. Cue standard STW response with pictures of Burmese Buddists massacring Muslims in Burma.

Sadly the culture of ‘being English and Englishness’ we have killed ourselves, no outsiders did it.

What used to be proffered, English reserve, stiff upper lip, good manners, polite respect for all, modesty, thrift, and no sex please, have long gone, thanks to the excesses of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s.

Where we used to be modest we now have the culture of celebrity for all, where we used to be thrifty, we spend it a long time before we earn it, where we used to have manners we have loutish behaviour encouraged by years of sitcoms and men behaving badly, where we used to be sexually behind closed doors we are now liberated to the point that anything goes almost anywhere.

So quite what English culture folk might feel has been eroded by foreigners I’m not sure. Indeed it is our lack of moral compass that alienates other cultures from integrating.

I have travelled all my working life and cringe if I end up in the company of the latter day British abroad and take my vacations as far from the beaten track as possible. That said on a personal level and in the sporting arenas of bikes, and watersports Brits generally are OK.

The Right wing can be blamed for the financial and greed excesses where the left may take the blame for the sexual revolution, but either way, both political wings destroyed that original essential “Englishness’ that other nations used to admire about us.

I drive a van as my only vehicle transport, have done for years barring a recent flirtation with Pickups..

They are great toy boxes.

Recently I had a test drive and have been considering this electric van..

On paper it seemed great, nearly 100 mile range which would suit my local use, you can fit them with a tow bar, (I have a sailing dinghy that occasionally I have to move around) and right now it would be sat there charging as I spend hours at a desk.

But, the day I tried it, the weather was really cold and the range just evaporated to like 40 miles which isn’t really enough for a return journey to the next town, so it kind of put me off. I did wonder wether you could carry like a portable generator to offset the problem of distance drives.

I’d love not to have to pay nearly a hundred quid every time I fill up.

Being patriotic is viewed as a right wing tendency, God Queen and Country and all that, it’s viewed with contempt by the left, the extreme opinion being there should be no nation states and we are all one planetary group.

It gets very confusing, you can have left wing views yet be called a fascist for waving the flag at the wrong time and your suggestions of British culture will have the left crying racist sooner than you can say STW.

I can sympathise with the views that the typical Englishness that we knew in our youth has changed quite dramatically and it is indeed interesting to note how various regions have changed with the influx of different cultures. Driving through London on a back road to Alexander Palace the other week with a group of friends I was taking to an exhibition, had them astounded at the costumes of the Hesidic & Orhtodox jews wandering around seemingly aimlessly early on the Saturday morning with their peculiar cake like hats and curly pig tails.

All manner of dress types then emerged as we passed from one part to another, more familiar Muslim stuff with Burkha clad women and bearded men, Afro Caribbean Rasta men, easy to become unsettled by it all if all you have known is a village like upbringing in the Weald of Kent.

But, it’s a Global village these days, cheap air travel, has opened the world up to us, I dare say, various parts of Africa just love yuppie Motor bike tours roaring through their villages, and wonder what is going on in the Western style cities that have been inflicted upon them as their resources have been plundered.

It’s a tough one, but you can’t expect to act the colonial master for hundreds of years and not have your people return to the country that at one time ruled and set the standards that they should all aspire to.
Especially since when it was all going on we didn’t exactly change our habits to suit their culture.

So it is what it is, all part and parcel of living in a post colonial country with enough wealth to offer human rights and living costs to anyone who manages to show up here.

This is an interesting thread, particularly as just this very evening I was trying to explain this very thing to my youngest, I went down the route organised labour on the left and capitalist business owners on the right as my starting point with which to simplify the beginning, then went on pretty much along the lines above, but pointing out the shift to the right of New Labour which I personally feel was more right wing than the current coalition was trying to be prior to the UKIP surge at the elections.

Personally I think that Greens could prove the new left with a bit more marketing effort than they currently seem capable of.

On the Nazi thing, wasn’t the plan to install Edward and Mrs Simpson on the throne, thereby giving the US an American Queen of England that might have helped keep them out of the war and secure a single front for the assault on Russia, I’m sure I either read that some where or thought of it as a possible novel, whatever…