Proceedings of the Castle Aching Parish Council, 1905

[Compound2632]

10 minutes ago, uax6 said:

In a rare move I contacted my MP about the PM actions and how it is so unsavory to so many, including myself. I thought it would be the right thing to do to let them know how the population feels.

 

The Guardian quotes Julian Knight MP: "I’ve had many people who aren’t normal correspondents, so they aren’t people who regularly write to me in order to say the government is terrible, Boris is this whatever, you know, we do get quite a few correspondents of that nature. These are, I’d say about half of those - because I do monitor it very closely - are new correspondents and that is always a red sign on the dashboard."

 

I see the Tory Association of my native heath - Sutton Coldfield - has voted to call for the Prime Minister's resignation. That's one of the safest Tory seats in the country, incidentally whose MP is one of those whose activities would be most severely curtailed by restrictions on employment by firms for which he might be perceived as lobbying.

Edited January 14, 2022 by Compound2632

[MrWolf]

You contacted your MP with a complaint?

You do realise that such things are a huge inconvenience to them and time wasted reading your correspondence is time not spent feeling superior and filling their pockets?

They'll tell you how busy they are with projects that you don't care about but will probably cost you in the long run.

[uax6]

Just now, MrWolf said:

You contacted your MP with a complaint?

You do realise that such things are a huge inconvenience to them and time wasted reading your correspondence is time not spent feeling superior and filling their pockets?

They'll tell you how busy they are with projects that you don't care about but will probably cost you in the long run.

 

It's ok, she hasn't inconvenienced any electrons in actually replying to my email.... (which appears to be the 'in' management thing at the minute).

 

Its strange as I'm sure she is itching to get rid of him, so she can have a go herself...

 

Andy G

 

[Caley Jim]

4 hours ago, Edwardian said:

Serbia delivers an Ultimatum to Australia and Mobilises!

And the Aussies will be quaking in their flip flops (not)!

 

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

There's something wrong with me this morning (as usual). I read that as uninhibited islands. I was struggling to think of any since they're mostly occupied by Scots Presbyterians, monasteries, or other protected species.

Well, there's Rockall, St Kilda and Handa for a start, not to mention several chunks of rock in the Orkney's and Shetland's.  The Bass Rock was used as a prison in the late 1600's (The Killing Times) for Covenanters who fought for Presbyterianism and refused to acknowledge the King as head of the church, as a result being branded as traitors.

 

Jim

[Compound2632]

14 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

The Bass Rock was used as a prison in the late 1600's (The Killing Times) for Covenanters who fought for Presbyterianism and refused to acknowledge the King as head of the church, as a result being branded as traitors.

 

Well, I suppose one could consider rebellion against the crown as uninhibited behaviour, though I doubt they were feeling so uninhibited once they reached the Bass Rock. 

[MrWolf]

1 hour ago, Caley Jim said:

And the Aussies will be quaking in their flip flops (not)!

 

Given the reputation the Australian troops earned in North Africa and Asia during WWII, I reckon that you're right there.

 

1 hour ago, Caley Jim said:

 

Well, there's Rockall, St Kilda and Handa for a start, not to mention several chunks of rock in the Orkney's and Shetland's.  The Bass Rock was used as a prison in the late 1600's (The Killing Times) for Covenanters who fought for Presbyterianism and refused to acknowledge the King as head of the church, as a result being branded as traitors.

 

Jim

 

I hear Gruinard is nice at this time of year.....

 

[Caley Jim]

2 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

I hear Gruinard is nice at this time of year.....

At least it seems to be clear of anthrax nowadays!

 

Jim

[MrWolf]

7 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

At least it seems to be clear of anthrax nowadays!

 

Jim

 

I'm never going to get to use my NBC training at this rate...

[rocor]

4 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

The thing about remote islands is that you can never be totally sure what goes on once the ferry departs, taking with it the last tourist of the season with it.

 

 

 

I am certain that nothing sinister ever occurs.

 

[Ian Simpson]

5 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

There are quite a few uninhabited islands off the British coast, some very dreary or otherwise unpleasant, which could be used as accommodation without technically resorting to deportation. 

Well, if we just want to exile him within the UK, there's always the House of Lords. I hope it's not cruel to say that Boris's distinct brand of political nous and moral fibre make him natural Lordship material. 

And if he took Silly Jacob along to the Lords with him, I wouldn't be too upset.

[Compound2632]

2 minutes ago, Ian Simpson said:

Well, if we just want to exile him within the UK, there's always the House of Lords.

 

That would simply be to perpetuate the abuse of the procedure for appointing peers that he himself has indulged in.

 

https://constitution-unit.com/2020/07/31/boris-johnsons-36-new-peerages-make-the-need-to-constrain-prime-ministerial-appointments-to-the-house-of-lords-clearer-than-ever/.

[MrWolf]

9 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

That would simply be to perpetuate the abuse of the procedure for appointing peers that he himself has indulged in.

 

https://constitution-unit.com/2020/07/31/boris-johnsons-36-new-peerages-make-the-need-to-constrain-prime-ministerial-appointments-to-the-house-of-lords-clearer-than-ever/.

 

Tony Blair would never have done that!

 

Oh, hang on....

 

 

[MrWolf]

I must say that I have become rather cynical about the two (oh, sorry, two and a half) party system. 

The only time they get themselves in gear is when covering something up, be it lockdown parties or non existent WMDs.

 

They also have a great deal of energy whenever someone new appears on the political scene. Then both sides pull together to ensure that the newcomers are dismissed as quickly as possible as tree hugging loonies or racists before too many of the "damaged thinkers" have the ingratitude to vote for them.

[Regularity]

3 hours ago, MrWolf said:

dismissed as quickly as possible as tree hugging loonies or racists

That doesn’t preclude the possibility that they are tree-hugging loonies or racists, of course.

 

Can’t see how such people wouldn’t fit in, to be honest, but that’s a whole other point for discussion…

 

What do we want? Free thinking!

When do we want it? Well, that’s up to you to decide for yourself, I suppose.

[MrWolf]

21 minutes ago, Regularity said:

That doesn’t preclude the possibility that they are tree-hugging loonies or racists, of course.

 

Can’t see how such people wouldn’t fit in, to be honest, but that’s a whole other point for discussion…

 

What do we want? Free thinking!

When do we want it? Well, that’s up to you to decide for yourself, I suppose.

 

I suspect there's little hope for the entire human race to decide to live life with integrity...  

[MrWolf]

A bit of after dinner channel hopping rapidly became depressing.

I said to Miss R:

"Good grief, why so many programmes with 'celebrity' in the title?"

Practical as ever she replied:

"It's because they can't use the word "ar**hole" before nine o'clock..."

 

 

 

Edited January 14, 2022 by MrWolf
Stupid autocorrect

[Flying Fox 34F]

5 hours ago, Ian Simpson said:

Well, if we just want to exile him within the UK, there's always the House of Lords. I hope it's not cruel to say that Boris's distinct brand of political nous and moral fibre make him natural Lordship material. 

And if he took Silly Jacob along to the Lords with him, I wouldn't be too upset.

I can think of one member of the House of Lords who ensures he is always there most of the time to claim his Daily Allowance. 
He was easy to spot at the ECML station nearest to his home, taking his shopping form Fortnum and Masons with him!  
Such a Public Servant!!!!!!

 

Paul

[drmditch]

14 hours ago, Edwardian said:

Breaking news .......

Serbia delivers an Ultimatum to Australia and Mobilises!

I thought that it was Austria Hungary that sent the Ultimatums, and Serbia that tried hard hard to accept as much as possible of deliberately impossible terms. The first shots were fired by the KuK Kreigsmarine Danube flotilla in the bombardment of Belgrade.  I think that this has been discussed somewhere on this thread before.

 

'Plucky little Serbia' then lost out badly for four years, until it was eventually rewarded (in one of the 1919 treaties - I forget which) with the creation of Yugoslavia as a 'Greater Serbia'. The same treaties (in an early example of 'cut and paste') forbade the new, smaller Austrian Republic from possessing any submarines!

 

I'm not sure 'Plucky Little Serbia' is regarded quite the same way in the West these days.

 

On a different subject, it would be interesting to hear an informed view on the recent refusal of two juries to convict defendants for what might be seen as 'political' crimes.

[Edwardian]

The notion of plucky little Serbia came our National weakness for an underdog, but savours of the same need for pragmatical propaganda that in the next war made Stalin avuncular.

 

It was not well regarded at the time. Serbia was a nasty, violent car-crash of a rogue state before the Great War, and nothing but a pain in Europe's collective @ rse. Plus ça change. 

 

Having Serbia on the edge of Europe was like being a nice middle class family trying to ignore the fact that Uncle Ronnie ran a crack den and had people knee-capped.

 

Austria-Hungary, though arrogant and inept, had Serbia bang to rights over its state-sponsored assassination of the heir to its thrones.

 

So, I have as much sympathy for Serbia as I do for, say, Novax Jokeovic.

 

EDIT: Trial by jury is intended as an essential protection in our criminal justice system.  The odd idiosyncratic 'not guilty' verdict, to my mind, will always be a welcome reminder that it still works as such. 

 

 

Edited January 14, 2022 by Edwardian

[Andy Hayter]

44 minutes ago, drmditch said:

The same treaties (in an early example of 'cut and paste') forbade the new, smaller Austrian Republic from possessing any submarines!

 

 

 

Does seem strange except that I have been to the Technikmuseum in Speyer where they have one of the engines from an Austrian submarine.  It is then that you realise that Austria had a coast from Trieste down to around Dubrovnik.

[colin smith]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

Trial by jury is intended as an essential protection in our criminal justice system.  The odd idiosyncratic 'not guilty' verdict, to my mind, will always be a welcome reminder that it still works as such. 

 

Totally agreed. I can't claim to be an informed observer, though I am certainly a highly sympathetic observer and for what it's worth I lived in Bristol for several years so believe I know the place reasonably well. Not least, it may surprise some that the majority of Bristolians are glad the statue had gone.

 

In both cases I don't think it was a case of the juries arguing the defendants did not do what they did: clearly, Colston's statue ended up in the dock and trains were delayed. It's more a case that the specific crimes with which both groups were charged did not, in the jurors' opinion, fit the circumstances of the incidents when the protesters' motivations were taken into account.

 

Now whether you sympathise with either group's motivation, or think they are both deranged, is a matter of opinion, but the targeted toppling of Colston's statue is not the same as a bit of drunken vandalism on the way back from the pub and interrupting transport to protest against damage to the environment is not the same as a bit of mindless trespassing on the tracks, and the juries' decisions, I think, were an acknowledgement that they are not the same.

[Edwardian]

8 hours ago, Andy Hayter said:

 

Does seem strange except that I have been to the Technikmuseum in Speyer where they have one of the engines from an Austrian submarine.  It is then that you realise that Austria had a coast from Trieste down to around Dubrovnik.

 

Let's not forget that a certain von Trapp had been an Austrian submarine ace in WW1!

 

According to Wiki, sinking 11 Allied merchant ships totaling 47,653 GRT and 2 Allied warships displacing a total of 12,641 tons

 

[Nearholmer]

8 hours ago, colin smith said:

It's more a case that the specific crimes with which both groups were charged did not, in the jurors' opinion, fit the circumstances of the incidents when the protesters' motivations were taken into account.

To me, that seems to sum it up well. 
 

What I don’t know is whether the law allows for consideration of motivation in either case, but if it doesn’t, then the juries were in one sense more sophisticated than the law, but in another sense taking things in a really difficult direction, because judging motivation is an incredibly difficult thing to do, and places the line between crime and not-crime in the realms of thought rather than deed. Mind you, we have crimes based on ‘intent’, which is very similar.

[MrWolf]

From that you can get into the realms of one man's freedom fighter being another man's terrorist and how does the law decide which is morally right? 

[alastairq]

One man's ''common sense'' is another man's ''idiocy?''