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Proceedings of the Castle Aching Parish Council, 1905


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Radio 4 is not the only national treasure that has it in for us lot. I would cite Marks & Spencer, which seems determined not to stock suits, trousers, or shirts in sizes appropriate to its core demographic of middle-sized, middle-aged, middle-class men. There's plenty there for the tall, thin, and young (judging by the mannequins), who probably wouldn't be seen dead in the place. 

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5 hours ago, Edwardian said:

I don't complain.

You do, and you did, otherwise I wouldn’t have responded.

 

But that’s not the point. On the whole, people like you and me have found it easier to progress through life than if we had been born to a different “class”, religion, colour of skin or gender.

 

That doesn’t make us - as individuals - in anyway culpable for the past or for the current situation, just that we should be mindful of the circumstances in which we operate. At least, if we wish to think of ourselves as liberal and compassionate.

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54 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Radio 4 is not the only national treasure that has it in for us lot. I would cite Marks & Spencer, which seems determined not to stock suits, trousers, or shirts in sizes appropriate to its core demographic of middle-sized, middle-aged, middle-class men. There's plenty there for the tall, thin, and young (judging by the mannequins), who probably wouldn't be seen dead in the place. 

 

Serves you right for buying 'off the peg'

 

Peasant.

 

In other news .....

 

A message from the Cambridge Union to its members. 

 

"......... Dear ,

 

I hope you are well and have had a lovely weekend. I just wanted to update you on how we’re responding to last week’s debate, and how you can get involved if you’d like to too.

 

For starters, in the interests of transparency, as a committee we think it is important that you have the opportunity to watch the full debate from Thursday, if you wish to, though we will not be publicly advertising it as we usually would. Be aware that racist and anti-semitic language is used in the debate's second speech. The link to the full video, if you would still like to view it with this in mind, is here.

 

In terms of our response, this weekend I spoke to JSoc and members of my own committee to discuss what to do next. There are quite a few parts to how I would like to move forward, so I shall outline each just briefly here. Crucially, the final part here — our forum tomorrow and Wednesday — is intended to be a listening exercise, and a starting point for the consideration of further things the Union ought to do from now on. So I very much hope that this list grows over the coming days too.

 

Whether I am — and the Union is — able to heal some of the damage created by our last debate is not something that one can discern from a list of promises — but it does give something to judge us by.

 

Invitations & Debates

 

Most obviously, we will create a blacklist of speakers never to be invited back, and we will share it with other Unions too. Andrew will be on that list.........

 

Best wishes,

Keir Bradwell

President, Michaelmas 2021"

 

Well, now, what to make to that?

 

The motion debated was along the lines of "This House believes there is no such thing as good taste"

 

The offending speech is this one: 

 

https://youtu.be/h5cXXE3jlpc?t=615

 

The speaker was thereafter blacklisted by the Union and reported in the media as a rascist. 

 

I confess I had not come across this cause célèbre before an old university chum pointed it out and sent me a link, but this did mean that I was able to watch the entire speech without having any notion of why what Andrew Graham-Dixon said was considered to be so egregious.  I am still struggling to identify the problem.  As I listened, I wondered if the assembled undergrads had simply felt too uncomfortable at the lengthy paraphrase of MK, done with the parody voice. The paraphrase was necessary to make the point.  The parody less so, but it added emphasis and made sense because, if in bad taste it was surely ironically so, mocking both Hitler and the bad taste of the Nazi leader,  Before I turned off, a floor speaker objected that racism etc was not a mere instance of bad taste; the implied criticism seems to be that treating racism etc as bad taste trivialised them, yet that is not what I understood the paper speaker to have said. I thought I was listening to an impassioned case against racism and anti-semitism etc and the attitudes that can foster such ills. So, what is my blind-spot that means I cannot see and understand the infraction here?

 

So, perplexed, and concerned that I was unconsciously morphing into an out of touch old racist, despite my daily diet of Radio 4 'liberalism for grown-ups' , I looked it up on t'internet. The first result was a BBC report 4 days ago saying that the CU president had retracted the ban, which had indeed been imposed for the Hitler impersonation.  

 

So, I then turned to the MosleyOnline, not having subscriptions to the online broadsheets, to see if its support now extended from real Fascists to those merely doing impressions of them. Well, it does, of course, insomuch as the story is manna from Heaven for the Daily Hate's preoccupation with 'political correctness gone mad' and, so, is mainly about John Cleese's condemnation of 'cancel culture'.  

 

It is stupidity like this that provides fodder to the less enlightened amongst is. It provokes denunciations using words like "Woke" and "Snowflake" and is offered as proof-positive that such people are off their trollies and generally ruining the World for all those who distrust the freedom that allows other people to live their lives differently.     . 

 

In fact, I think the only thing really to take from this whole story is that the current CU president is a bit of a prat.

 

 

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12 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Look closely at John Cleese’s role in all this. He is a clever, old right-wing provocateur, and used self-deprecating wit to skewer the CU bod.

 

 

 

He really did take fill advantage of his Enemy's mistake!

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53 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

In fact, I think the only thing really to take from this whole story is that the current CU president is a bit of a prat.

 

If the Cambridge Union is anything like the Oxford Union, no surprise there. 

 

(For the benefit of those outside the charmed circle of privilege that graduates of the two ancient universities inhabit, these organisations are university debating clubs. I never joined that particular club or attended its debates, though my wife did. In support of my observation I note the following past presidents of the Oxford club:

  • Autumn 1981: William Hague
  • Summer 1986: Boris Johnson
  • Spring 1988: Michael Gove

A full list can be found on Wikipedia. You can judge for yourselves what these individuals must have been like as jejune undergraduates. Fortunately (or otherwise) there's only so much of a fool you can make of yourself in the space of eight weeks.)

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6 hours ago, Edwardian said:

The people who are truly privileged, as opposed to just pejoratively so, I suggest, are those who are able to live off savings, investments, capital and the work done by others.

Do you include among these those of us who are now retired and living on a pension + investments into which we contributed all our working lives?  I object to the term 'working class' as, to me, it implies that no one else does any work.  I consider I worked b****y hard as a GDP, not only dealing with all the dental problems the public threw at me, but also running a business.

 

Jim

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22 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

Do you include among these those of us who are now retired and living on a pension + investments into which we contributed all our working lives?  I object to the term 'working class' as, to me, it implies that no one else does any work.  I consider I worked b****y hard as a GDP, not only dealing with all the dental problems the public threw at me, but also running a business.

 

Jim

 

No

 

Though I will remain immensely privileged without any pension. 

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18 hours ago, Caley Jim said:

I object to the term 'working class' as, to me, it implies that no one else does any work.

My father's view is that if you have to work for a living (and work to save for retirement) then you are working class.

If you started life not having to work for a living (but may work anyway) then you are not.

He is a very dry Tory (grew up on a rough council estate in the ****end of town, and has a dislike/distrust of "welfare paternalism"), so it's an interesting distinction.

 

Interesting point. A lot of people complain about the impact of "inherited wealth" in our society to the extent of thinking Something Must Be Done, by which I usually think they mean "it should be taken off the privileged so-and-sos". (To be fair, some of these families are wealthy through hard work and sound investments.)

How would they feel about a punitive death tax being applied to their own estate, and everything taken off them and returned to the "common good" rather than their own children?

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11 minutes ago, Regularity said:

How would they feel about a punitive death tax being applied to their own estate, and everything taken off them and returned to the "common good" rather than their own children?

 

It is certainly a thought-experiment worth doing, because if it was genuinely possible to prevent the passing-on of material advantage, it would alter many things in society. For one thing, it would reduce the incentive to acquire material wealth in the first place, or at least reduce the incentive to hang onto it until grim death, which might help a bit with two things: funding people's care in the late stages of life; and, reducing the consumption of natural resources.

 

Children still wouldn't all begin life's race on the same starting-line, or with the same running-spikes/knackered-old-plimsolls, because most parents are very much alive to bring up their children, and confer advantage or disadvantage (thinking Larkin) in the process, but it would alter how things run at a later age in many cases.

 

Needs a thread of its own really, to "model" how a society might be changed by preventing inheritance.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Regularity said:

How would they feel about a punitive death tax being applied to their own estate, and everything taken off them and returned to the "common good" rather than their own children?

 

It would certainly make people more aware of the rules around gifts during lifetime.

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On 16/11/2021 at 21:26, Edwardian said:

Now, again, Covid's effect on the economy

See,  what your government  did wrong was to end lockdowns and open the place up and let you all  get  back to work.

In contrast here  we had several extra months of lockdown when we couldn't  go to work  to earn a living and businesses couldn't do business....and obviously the economy is going mental as a result.

 

House prices have risen more than ever and we house owners are all now paper millionaires due to us all being locked down and unable to go to work to earn a living.

 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://amp.9news.com.au/article/38b862f1-1d8b-433a-9fc7-ddc6181d093c&ved=2ahUKEwizgoiYwJ_0AhV7lNgFHUHOBdsQFnoECBEQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0FPHAIvMJXb4Vlqs82Lpds&ampcf=1

 

The market for Australian muscle cars of the 70's has gone crazy with even the humblest  cars that your granny drove to bowls  fetching high 5 figure sums, due to us all being locked down and unable to go to  work to earn a living.

 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://amp.9news.com.au/article/0f8f4d5e-c9c0-403f-aa97-635e85371caa&ved=2ahUKEwj9yqWHwZ_0AhV_lNgFHeneCqUQFnoECDEQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0U1zACzKc4CIjZZme73-kW&ampcf=1

 

And everyone is saving so much the banks can't find places to  stash it due to us all being locked down and unable to go to  work to earn a living.

 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.businessinsider.com.au/australias-230-billion-in-household-savings-will-fuel-a-post-lockdown-spending-spree-economists-say/amp&ved=2ahUKEwi9zvSrwZ_0AhXX73MBHYWOAdUQFnoECAQQAQ&usg=AOvVaw09dD4TEezd96wEEHOuRZS2

 

Imagine if your government instead of rushing to have freedom days and all that nonsense had kept you all locked down for say an extra six months  you too would  all have houses with harbour views and be driving around like Mad Max. ( Not Mad Max 3  Beyond Thunderdome though, that was rubbish)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by monkeysarefun
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All this stuff about 'inheritance' makes me think of one aspect which, thus far is ignored?

That is, plain & simple, ''good fortune?''

To be able to put bread on one's table, and save [speculate?] for one's old age/retirement/pension, makes me wonder whether anybody ever considers how much 'good fortune' plays a part in the successful outcome? [IE, house paid for, a tidy wee income to live off...maybe a couple of warm climate holidays a year, etc.]

Illness, accidents, divorces, or simple, unfortunate, financial management, can all make a mess of 'plans'...

Plus, one needs an income in the first instance,  that allows a surplus over immediate financial needs, to be able to save for the dim n distant future?

 

There's a degree of ''if I can do it, why can't everybody else?'' about it all.

 

Instead of feeling smug about it all, how's about thinking ''phew?''

As one wipes one's brow?

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Monkeys,

 

We’ve had all that already, so here are the bits you possibly haven’t had yet, but probably will:

 

- shortages* of stuff in the shops;

 

- significant price inflation, due to the combination of mild shortages and too much stashed money chasing the goods that are available;

 

- shortages of labour in key sectors, leading to upward wage pressure, threatening further price inflation;

 

- near-certainty of interest rate rises, needed in order to put a damper on inflation;

 

- impending winter.

 

Now, some of this is due in part to us casting ourselves adrift, but a lot of it is because of lockdowns.

 

*It’s more “restricted choice” than actual shortages, so we don’t need food parcels yet (feel free to send them if you want, though), although it gets pretty bl@@dy annoying when you try to buy components to repair things like bikes, washing machines etc, because the residual choice of things in stock is always between components that don’t fit the model you own or, no components at all.

Edited by Nearholmer
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I now have a vaccine passport on my stupidphone smartphone thanks to my clever daughter guiding her sleepy old half blind mum through the whole esoteric business of registering for one and then persuading it to live inside my stupidphone smartphone where I can find it should I want to.  Being the sort of person who doesn't like being anywhere near people much and prefers staying at home I most probably won't really need to use it, but it would be just my luck if I had to and I didn't have it with me.

This week anyone who isn't vaccinated and who works in the medical and teaching professions will now find themselves no longer employed.  Emergency services folk and first responders have been given a little longer to get get their act together, but the clock is ticking.  Our brain dead Tory opposition and the antivaxxers as well as various other idiots have combined together to bray about NZ subscribing to apartheid by preventing the unvaccinated from going where they please and spreading the plague, but the simple fact is we're seeing the same thing as other countries have experienced where it's the unvaccinated who are clogging up the hospitals and acting as vectors of further infection.  The full madness of the end of year greedy retail season sometimes called Christmas will soon be upon us with idiots and freedumbers breaking the rules to have jolly virus exchange parties and our hospitals here are already bracing themselves for a spike in infections in the new year.

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To top it all [antivaxxxxer thing still]...Prof Spectre [Spektor?] on the ZOE  covid thing [King's College thingy] noted on the latest ZOE briefing, how the stats now show that 1 in 5 [unvaxed] who have had covid in the past, have acquired zero antibodies from their bout.  

 

That's around 20% who haven't received a vaxx [as distinct for Vax, which is a marvelous hoover!]....who think that simply having caught covid in the past, thinking they will acquire immunity without the little prick....will be sadly disappointed when they get it again..and again...

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46 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

we don’t need food parcels yet (feel free to send them if you want, though)

 

Our government is arranging for this anyway, to the detriment of our already hard-pressed farmers.

 

47 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

because the residual choice of things in stock is always between components that don’t fit the model you own or, no components at all.

 

Vide my comments on Marks & Spencer. In that case, I don't even have the option of changing the model I own.

 

Fortunately for all and sundry, I'm not yet reduced to the "no components at all" option.

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23 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

If the Cambridge Union is anything like the Oxford Union, no surprise there. 

 

(For the benefit of those outside the charmed circle of privilege that graduates of the two ancient universities inhabit, these organisations are university debating clubs. I never joined that particular club or attended its debates, though my wife did. In support of my observation I note the following past presidents of the Oxford club:

  • Autumn 1981: William Hague
  • Summer 1986: Boris Johnson
  • Spring 1988: Michael Gove

A full list can be found on Wikipedia. You can judge for yourselves what these individuals must have been like as jejune undergraduates. Fortunately (or otherwise) there's only so much of a fool you can make of yourself in the space of eight weeks.)

 

When I joined the Ox one, the president was Philip May. I wonder what happened to him and Theresa?

 

If you want really bad taste, how about Hitler at Home?

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5 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

 

Needs a thread of its own really, to "model" how a society might be changed by preventing inheritance.

 

 

 

I wish you the best of luck slipping that one past the management.

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6 hours ago, Annie said:

 Our brain dead Tory opposition and the antivaxxers as well as various other idiots have combined together to bray about NZ subscribing to apartheid by preventing the unvaccinated from going where they please and spreading the plague, but the simple fact is we're seeing the same thing as other countries have experienced where it's the unvaccinated who are clogging up the hospitals and acting as vectors of further infection. 

 

As an Australian can I say that its a relief to not be NZ's bad guys for once  - bowling underarm to you, sending you possums, stealing Russell Crowe....

 

The antivaxxers maintain two irrefutable (to them) arguments - firstly  their immune system is a brick wall that will instantly recognise and defeat any new virus

image.png.814dbb9c8c7f5554eaa696ca8969b621.png

 

and secondly that vaccines dont work but are being pushed by big pharma and the medical industry  in order to make a fortune.

 

Thats the  same big pharma and medical industry that would make far larger fortunes if they kept everyone unvaccinated and charged them the $120,000 that one US antivaxxer who's facebook page I was on was trying to raise through gofundme in order to pay the bill for the care and drugs he and family members  needed during the  weeks they'd spent in hospital and in the ICU after getting Covid in July. .

 

Was still posting  up antivax memes in there too  though..

 

Hey and  heres a link for you Nearholmer - you were wondering a couple of weeks ago when the book burning would begin in the US...

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by monkeysarefun
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1 minute ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

As an Australian can I say that its a relief to for once not being the NZ's bad guys - bowling underarm to you, sending you possums, stealing Russell Crowe....

 

The antivaxxers maintain two irrefutable (to them) arguments - firstly  their immune system is a brick wall that will instantly recognise and defeat any new virus

image.png.814dbb9c8c7f5554eaa696ca8969b621.png

 

and secondly that vaccines dont work but are being pushed by big pharma and the medical industry  in order to make a fortune.

 

Thats the  same big pharma and medical industry that would make far larger fortunes if they kept everyone unvaccinated and charged them the $120,000 that one US antivaxxer who's facebook page I was on was trying to raise through gofundme in order to pay the bill for the care and drugs he'd needed during the  weeks he'd spent in the ICU after getting Covid in July. .

 

Was still posting  up antivax memes in there too  though..

 

Hey and  heres a link for you Nearholmer - you were wondering a couple of weeks ago when the book burning would begin in the US...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hey, I've got a CSE in Chemistry - what have they got against that? (It came free with my O-level, as a consequence of doing the Nuffield course.)

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20 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

For one thing, it would reduce the incentive to acquire material wealth in the first place, or at least reduce the incentive to hang onto it until grim death, which might help a bit with two things: funding people's care in the late stages of life; and, reducing the consumption of natural resources.

It would also free up wealth, as it wouldn’t be tied up in property, putting the money into circulation.

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The book burning thing, and other stuff, and watching a truly harrowing three part documentary called ‘Berlin 1945’ (bbc iPlayer - very gruelling viewing) makes me wonder if one of the things wrong with the US is that it  hasn’t lived close-enough to the horrors that Europe has experienced in the past hundred odd years.

 

The lesson is easily forgotten within Europe, but is at least writ large enough to provide some protection, but for some of the US it seems never to have been written at all.

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