Proceedings of the Castle Aching Parish Council, 1905

[Edwardian]

"Zola's father died when he was aged 7"

 

An intriguing revelation from an academic on In Our Time this morning, but how did the deceased manage to father a child before dying at 7?

[Welchester]

59 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

"Zola's father died when he was aged 7"

 

An intriguing revelation from an academic on In Our Time this morning, but how did the deceased manage to father a child before dying at 7?

 

Interesting that Zola was included in the Panthéon not for his novels, but for his rôle in the Dreyfus affaire. J'accuse!

[Edwardian]

1 hour ago, Welchester said:

 

Interesting that Zola was included in the Panthéon not for his novels, but for his rôle in the Dreyfus affaire. J'accuse!

 

Which raises the potential for a conspiracy theory concerning his death from carbon monoxide poisoning that would posit a deliberate blocking of his chimney. by the Dark Forces of Reaction

 

I did not manage to hear the IOT broadcast past the line I quoted, mammon being particularly demanding today, but I'll try to catch up (and spot any further grammatically imprecise statements!)

[rocor]

On 25/10/2023 at 22:42, Edwardian said:

 

So, The V agina Monologues not for you then?

 

 

 

 

Wasn't that one of Aardman Animations quirky animated conversation pieces?

[Compound2632]

On 25/10/2023 at 21:20, Nearholmer said:

Sorry.

 

I’ll try putting it in a less offensive way:

 

If I were young, I would resent seeing tax revenue spent on subsiding arts that are patronised mainly be the older demographic that has a strong tendency to vote against paying taxes for anything, yet also needs a disproportionate amount of tax-funded health and social care, and complains vociferously if it isn’t provided.

 

TBH, I’ve got a very twitchy relationship with subsiding the arts in general, a tendency to reach for my revolver, unless it’s stuff that is very genuinely  involving of a broad constituency of people from all walks of life and of all ages, and/or is very much participatory.

 

I take the view that opera is a fundamental human right. As the summit of human artistic achievement, it should be accessible to all. The greatest opera composers understand and desire that. (Well, they would, wouldn't they?) But I don't think that lack of access by others is sufficient grounds for me not to avail myself of access when the opportunity arises.

 

But I do wonder whether elderly opera-goers are so very typical of the older demographic you describe. All that exposure to the heights of human feeling cannot be without some spiritual and intellectual effect?  

[monkeysarefun]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

I take the view that opera is a fundamental human right.

 

History has not recorded the name of the bloke who turned up in 1960's sydney and convinced us that we needed an Opera House.

 

It was controversial throughout  its construction, but that was limited to the engineering practicalities, there was never a "we don't need a (($*@  Opera House!"  argument. For some reason in those happier more inclusive times  we just accepted an Opera House was the thing to have. 

 

It went way overtime and  budget, but was funded by a lottery.

 

I remember the Queen coming to open it in 1973 . I watched  it "live" on that Saturday afternoon on  our black and white telly while painting my set of 1/76th scale  Airfix "Robin Hood" figures that I'd just bought with my pocket money. I remember I used the  gloss Kelly Green enamel paint  that  dad had just used to paint the gutters and garage door with., and they thus took ages to dry and were  forever more covered with my   " Are they dry yet?!"  fingerprint tests..

 

I have sung at the Opera House, school Eisteddfods were held there and as part of class 5 of Mawarra Public School I got to sing  "The Girl With The Black Velvet Band".

In the 70's  songs  about  being  forcefully deported from the UK were huge here.

 

The Opera House  is one of those rare things that   is impossible to take a bad photo of. 

 

Its a building that just makes you happy to be around, even without the Opera. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Opera house security seal.

 

 

 

 

Edited October 28, 2023 by monkeysarefun

[Compound2632]

4 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

The Opera House  is one of those rare buildings that   is impossible to get a bad photo of. 

 

Its a building that just makes you happy to be around, even without the Opera. 

 

I have heard it said, probably not by someone from Sydney, that Australia has one of the world's great opera houses but unfortunately the outside is in Sydney and the inside in Melbourne.

[monkeysarefun]

Just now, Compound2632 said:

 

I have heard it said, probably not by someone from Sydney, that Australia has one of the world's great opera houses but unfortunately the outside is in Sydney and the inside in Melbourne.

 

 

That is almost certainly true. 

 

It is a weather thing.

[teaky]

Clive James once described it as "a restaurant frequented by theatre goers".

[Buhar]

Keeping an eye on the Covid Inquiry I'm getting increasingly concerned by the outbreaks of amnesia among senior figures in government, both elected and appointed.  Failing to "recognise" and simply not recalling matters of huge significance is not giving me any confidence in these individuals.  Strangely, when it comes to writing diaries or memoirs for huge sums in advance, they are then seemingly able to remember what colour tie they wore to a cabinet meeting.

I see that the Trump offspring are at it as well.  The Tumpian adjective is probably - Sad.

 

Alan

[monkeysarefun]

3 minutes ago, Buhar said:

 

I see that the Trump offspring are at it as well.  

 

Alan

 

 

Uday and Qusay.

[CF MRC]

On 28/10/2023 at 16:15, monkeysarefun said:

 

History has not recorded the name of the bloke who turned up in 1960's sydney and convinced us that we needed an Opera House.

 

It was controversial throughout  its construction, but that was limited to the engineering practicalities, there was never a "we don't need a (($*@  Opera House!"  argument. For some reason in those happier more inclusive times  we just accepted an Opera House was the thing to have. 

 

It went way overtime and  budget, but was funded by a lottery.

 

I remember the Queen coming to open it in 1973 . I watched  it "live" on that Saturday afternoon on  our black and white telly while painting my set of 1/76th scale  Airfix "Robin Hood" figures that I'd just bought with my pocket money. I remember I used the  gloss Kelly Green enamel paint  that  dad had just used to paint the gutters and garage door with., and they thus took ages to dry and were  forever more covered with my   " Are they dry yet?!"  fingerprint tests..

 

I have sung at the Opera House, school Eisteddfods were held there and as part of class 5 of Mawarra Public School I got to sing  "The Girl With The Black Velvet Band".

In the 70's  songs  about  being  forcefully deported from the UK were huge here.

 

The Opera House  is one of those rare things that   is impossible to take a bad photo of. 

 

Its a building that just makes you happy to be around, even without the Opera. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Opera house security seal.

 

 

 

 

It was an engineer relative of my wife, Manuel Hornibrook, who helped in the completion of the opera house. She’s pretty good on quality control on my models too…
 

Tim  

Edited November 7, 2023 by CF MRC

[Edwardian]

"Stop the boats!"

 

 

The Conservative government has been trying for years to stop dirty foreigners coming here. Nevermind strikes, and collapsing concrete schools, underfunded health, education, transport, courts, the lack of childcare or social care provision, the cost of living crisis, instutionally corrupt, homophbic and racist police forces, legislative curtailments of peaceful protest and civil liberties that sometimes even the Met refuse to implement, renaging on net zero committments etc etc. I could go on. The ways in which this country is f-ked are endless. 

 

The ability to distract the electorate from all of this by pointing and shouting "look over there, people in small boats!" has been remarkably effective for an astonishlingly long time.

 

But even the Daily Mail readers among us might have started to notice that the government cannot even solve the invented problem of choice.

 

We tried bribing the French to stop them. We've denied legal routes of entry and criminalised asylum seekers. We tried to fly them to Rwanda (and we're trying again). We tried to put them in prison hulks. We even painted over a cheery mural in a children's reception facility to stop it looking friendly and welcoming to distraught child refugees. Basically, if Paddington Bear tried to come here today, he'd be f-ked. Yet. none of this has worked. They keep coming.

 

Worse, we've lost 17,000 of them. That's right, 17,000 of those to whom we have refused asylum have disappeared.  

 

The fact is, the "people in small boats" are a fraction of those we need to let in legally to pick our leeks, wait at table, and change the nappies of our care home residents. Thanks to ending Freedom of Movement by leaving the EU, we've actually had to let more people in than before we "took back control"

 

Perhaps this is why, as the BBC reported on 23 November:

 

Net migration into the UK was a record 745,000 last year, figures show - far higher than originally thought.

 

Office for National Statistics data published on Thursday show that experts have revised up previous estimates.

 

In May, it said net migration - the difference between the number of people coming to live in the UK and those leaving - for 2022 had been 606,000, 139,000 lower than the true figure.

 

No wonder another government project is to run the BBC into the ground. Speak truth to power and power f-ks you up and then gets a job on GB News.

 

So, the Supreme Court said the Rwanda policy was unlawful. This is because it found as a fact that Rwanda was not a safe third country. Our Glorious PM's immediate response was to promise a new treaty with Rwanda and legislation that would deem Rwanda a safe vcountry, yes, parliament would simply change the facts. 

 

So. with proposed immigration legislation released in draft today, Robot Generic MP, the minister responsible has resigned.

 

Why? Because it does not pass the Bravaman test, it does not disapply European Convention and other Human Rights protections that form part of our international treaty obligations, because that is too mad even for this government, at the moment at least.

 

So the headbangers on the backbenches are frothing because, yes, legal challenges will still lie in the Strasbourg court of human rights and the policy will fail to reduce net migration despite the needless cruelty it inflicts and the further erosion of our constutional norms and international reputation it represents.

 

This is precisely why I consider right wing populists as dangerous idiots. 

 

How much longer?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

[monkeysarefun]

19 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Net migration into the UK was a record 745,000 last year, figures show - far higher than originally thought.

Two ideas to help.

 

1) Make conditions there more unpleasant for existing residents who will then up-sticks and  move elsewhere, thus lowering the net migration figure.

 

2) Follow Australias lead and excise the whole of Great Britain from the migration zone, thus negating those arriving by boat from legal rights in claiming asylum.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_migration_zone

Edited December 6, 2023 by monkeysarefun

[Caley Jim]

At least we don't have someone standing for election who thinks Al Capone 'was the greatest' (it takes one to know one) and says he will only act as a dictator on the first day of his presidency!  that will probably involve making himself President for life and abolishing all opposition parties!  Small comfort.

 

Jim

[Edwardian]

8 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

Two ideas to help.

 

1) Make conditions there more unpleasant for existing residents who will then up-sticks and  move elsewhere, thus lowering the net migration figure.

 

2) Follow Australias lead and excise the whole of Great Britain from the migration zone, thus negating those arriving by boat from legal rights in claiming asylum.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_migration_zone

 

Or just accept asylum seekers because our basic humanity demands nothing less and recognise that economic migrants are a self-selecting and highly motivated group of hard working over-acheivers whose skills or labour we sorely need and who will enrich our nation culturally.

 

Or, if you prefer, turn the Isle of Wight into a vast prison camp and just carpet bomb it every time it approaches capacity. 

 

 

Edited December 6, 2023 by Edwardian
Spelling!

[Compound2632]

9 hours ago, Edwardian said:

Or just accept asylum seekers because our basic humanity demands nothing less and recognise that economic migrants are a self-selecting and highly motivated group of hard working over-acheivers whose skills or labour we sorely need and who will enrich our nation culturally.

 

My agreement was with this first paragraph, of course.

 

But our government is very happy to accept economic migrants who have a certain amount of money - a blatant and obnoxious case of one law for the rich and another for the poor. 

[Edwardian]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

My agreement was with this first paragraph, of course.

 

But our government is very happy to accept economic migrants who have a certain amount of money - a blatant and obnoxious case of one law for the rich and another for the poor. 

 

Quite right. I should have qualified my original post. Government policy is to stop dirty poor foreigners coming to our shores!

 

As to my second post, as you guessed, only the first option was my policy reccomendation!

[Compound2632]

3 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

As to my second post, as you guessed, only the first option was my policy reccomendation!

 

11 hours ago, Edwardian said:

Or, if you prefer, turn the Isle of Wight into a vast prison camp and just carpet bomb it every time it approaches capacity. 

 

Well, one should be careful what one says - you never know who might pick up on it. The Isle of Wight is, I understand, full of elderly people, and we now know the attitude of many in and out of government towards them. 

[GMKAT7]

Good morning folks,

 

There was a case presented yesterday lunchtime on R2 (you know the show/host) of an Anglo-American married couple who could not now live in the UK under the new financial/settlement rules.

 

He works in a, self-proffessed, middle class job of academic publishing. His salary is below the new £38k threshold. He is English by birth and passport. She is American and a nurse IIRC.

 

So, not asylum seekers from some far-flung, exotic country.

But still, access denied!

The very stuff of the farce that Sunk and his party are now about to enshrine in UK law.

And still Cruella and Generic are not happy - what more do they dream about?

 

Cheers, Nigel.

[Nearholmer]

10 minutes ago, GMKAT7 said:

And still Cruella and Generic are not happy - what more do they dream about?

The clue is in Generic’s resignation letter: they have built-up the small boat thing in their minds to the status of a giant crisis, so terrible that it must be stopped at any cost in terms of crushing the rule of law, inhumanity, and sheer, mind-bending illogicality. They are obsessed, and panicked-into-uselessness by it.

 

There are problems and challenges around the asylum system, plenty of them, they are difficult things to tackle, requiring intelligence, competence, diligence, diplomacy, and sustained, probably endless, hard work by those in power, but what these head-cases dream about is an instant answer in return for gimmicky thinking.

[Edwardian]

1 minute ago, GMKAT7 said:

Good morning folks,

 

There was a case presented yesterday lunchtime on R2 (you know the show/host) of an Anglo-American married couple who could not now live in the UK under the new financial/settlement rules.

 

He works in a, self-proffessed, middle class job of academic publishing. His salary is below the new £38k threshold. He is English by birth and passport. She is American and a nurse IIRC.

 

So, not asylum seekers from some far-flung, exotic country.

But still, access denied!

The very stuff of the farce that Sunk and his party are now about to enshrine in UK law.

And still Cruella and Generic are not happy - what more do they dream about?

 

Cheers, Nigel.

 

This does, indeed, illustrate the farcically cruel nature of government policy well.  

 

I think the significance of these new rules is not that they are only now introducing something obnoxious in principle and deleterious to our economy in practice; I don't believe that injustice only arises at the point when something inconveniences white middle class privilege and, from a pragmatic stance, I also believe that people who work in lower paid sectors, particularly social care and nursing, are as necessary to us or, dare I say, more necessary to us than academic publishers.  It does underscore the absurdity and injustice of the system in a way that brings it to the attention of the chattering classes who probably never even imagined that anyone was stopped from bringing a spouse to live here. In other words, the chatterati have now noticed and are chattering about it! So, a further musket ball to the foot by our inept populist regime.  

[Welchester]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

 

Well, one should be careful what one says - you never know who might pick up on it. The Isle of Wight is, I understand, full of elderly people, and we now know the attitude of many in and out of government towards them. 

 

Isn't that an example of biting the hand that feeds you, or at least that puts a cross next to the name of the Conservative candidate at the polling booth?

[Compound2632]

Just now, Welchester said:

Isn't that an example of biting the hand that feeds you, or at least that puts a cross next to the name of the Conservative candidate at the polling booth?

 

Yes indeed but it illustrates their general contempt for their supporters.

[Welchester]

3 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Yes indeed but it illustrates their general contempt for their supporters.

 

Whom someone who recently rejoined the Government once described as 'mad, swivel-eyed loons'.