The British wit

Trollheart · 12-05-2020, 10:12 AM

I'm certainly not a right wing nut. I don't even have wings. Do you? Wow. I wish I could fly.

No, as I say I'm not overtly political, though if I lived in the USA I believe I would be a Democrat, while not really being familiar enough with either party to be able to say that really.

I think champagne socialism is like this: big party, lots of booze, fancy expensive dresses and jewels (and some of the women as bad!) and over dinner idiots who know no better talking about the world's problems while doing nothing to help. Kind of like (stupid metaphor but gets the idea across) bemoaning loudly the hunger in the world while stuffing your face. Or, to quote Pink Floyd, "Money - it's a crime. Share it fairly, but don't take a slice of my pie!"

adidasss · 12-08-2020, 09:36 PM

Don't mind me, I'll just keep posting amusing guardian articles here:

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...vid-patriotism

Quote:

If you haven’t been paying attention to the pandemic – and, I’ll admit, I did start tuning out sometime around May – you would be forgiven for thinking it was all just a global ruse to launch Matt Hancock’s early morning TV career. Here he is, look, talking to Sky News about the doomed track-and-trace system, giggling in front of a faux-punk portrait of the Queen. Here he is, look, threatening Piers Morgan that he’ll take the vaccine on live television. And here he is – and yes, I’ve just watched it back again to make sure – here he is crying on Good Morning Britain, because someone called William Shakespeare took the vaccine, and that man was British. I grew up on a steady diet of Zig and Zag, so I’m fairly used to waking up to watch puppets being controlled by hands inserted into their darker regions, but I do think the 2020 reboot needs to work in the realism department.

Are we all right? Matt Hancock, who is pretending to cry on TV by holding a single finger to a dry eye and then laughing – I don’t want to “gatekeep crying” but that is simply not how it is done – clearly isn’t all right. With Tuesday morning’s rollout making household names of Coventry grandmother Margaret Keenan (the first person to take the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine outside of trials) and William Shakespeare (the first person named William Shakespeare to take the vaccine out of trials), it’s totally understandable that this news would bring with it a small, squirming feeling of hope. But then Hancock dabs his bone-dry eyes again and says something like, “There’s so much work that’s gone into this and it really, really … I’m just proud to be British”, and: ah. Are you? Really? Why?

I suppose it is hardwired into the British condition to react to any hardship big or small by doubling down on dumb patriotism, but I do really think it is worth saying that “Germany developed the vaccine, all we did was buy it” before we plan a too-many-Red-Arrows flyover.

There’s an old dunk the British like to perform on Americans about the second world war – “You took your time getting involved!”, men born in 1965 like to joke with men born in 1978, in bars and pubs across the free world – and it relates to some complex neuroses about valour, sacrifice and having had comparatively easy lives: I don’t know. Britain being the first country to roll out a Covid vaccine feels less of a gritty victory won in the trenches and on the beaches, and more like camping overnight for three days outside an Apple store to be the first to buy an iPhone: like yeah, you did it, but it’s very difficult to respect you for it.

Big week for patriotism though, isn’t it? Kate and William – who, if you haven’t got up to that bit in The Crown yet, are the good honest millennial-era royals we like, and not the workshy millennial-era ex-royals we hate – are doing a tour of Scotland and Wales, for some reason, but on a train this time, so it’s fun. Part of me was hoping they’d see the reality of British train travel and revolutionise it from the inside – Prince William, so affected by being shimmied out of his chair by two people with five people’s luggage who insist that they’ve booked his table, then sitting on a fold-down seat by the toilets and having his £9 cheese toastie interrupted by people who need a crap repeatedly asking him, “Is there anyone in there, mate?”, like what am I, the Toilet Master? – but then I found out they’re travelling via royal train.

So at no point in their tour will they have to confront the strange sewage-y smell of every single carpet on certain expensive train operators. Prince William will never have to idle for half an hour at Rhyl. At no point will Kate have to fumble through her bags to produce a millennial railcard which – both she and the inspector know full well – expired several years ago. This was an opportunity lost.

Still, you have to wonder what those encountering the royals in Vaccine Week are feeling. Existential apathy, I’m suspecting. On a week where the long-awaited vaccine is finally rolling out but things are still extremely bad, pandemic-wise, Kate and William are doing a frontline worker-thanking tour but not actually taking the vaccine with them, so it’s just two royals turning up, slightly flouting domestic Covid regulations, to politely say: hallo.

“Just you?” paramedics would be forgiven for thinking, as a flurry of photographers stop them working in the middle of the day to make them line up and keep their distance from two strangers. “No … no vaccine for us or anything?”

There’s just – sorry, I’m tearing up. There’s just so much work that’s gone into this pointless train tour of the UK, you know? And it really, really … I’m just proud to be British.

~~jwb~~ · 12-09-2020, 04:11 AM

Damn british people suck

adidasss · 12-09-2020, 04:56 AM

They're the worst.

Trollheart · 12-09-2020, 10:24 AM

Apart from the Irish.

~~jwb~~ · 12-09-2020, 11:32 AM

Which side are you from Trollheart? Protestant or Catholic?

Trollheart · 12-09-2020, 12:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jwb

Which side are you from Trollheart? Protestant or Catholic?

I'm from Dublin, man: Republic of Ireland and proud non-practicing, non-believing Roman Catholic.

~~jwb~~ · 12-09-2020, 12:54 PM

Oh ok. My Irish side is catholic too. So is my italian side obviously.

What do you think about the IRA and all that **** that happened?

Trollheart · 12-09-2020, 03:50 PM

Yeah, you can never condone innocents and civilians being killed, but the IRA (which began as the IRB) was originally a form of resistance against English rule of course, and was supported by just about every Irish person. At that point, they only went for military targets and it was kind of a guerrila war. Later of course it became all about paid mercenaries and special interests, and the violence just escalated.

We were lucky here in the south; had few if any bombs (just one I remember when I was quite young, in O'Connell Street) but we were always hearing about it on the news. It's hard not to think of the "Brits" deserving it, as when we saw the likes of the miscarriages of justice such as the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four that led to the old saying "Irish as charged", but of course you had sympathy with the innocents killed in the bombing campaigns, and the daily violence people had to suffer.

Of course, I can't really speak about it with any sort of authority, as it was up there and we were down here. Heard about it almost every day on the news, but it seldom crossed the border. Sort of like, I guess, hearing about a bomb going off in Mexico, say, and being in New York.

My late aunt's uncle was in the original IRA, and she told some interesting stories about he and other IRA men escaping - and she'd point out the window - down the garden and over that wall, with the British soldiers after them. Fascinating stuff. But a world removed from the IRA of the seventies and eighties, who mostly were just out for themselves and didn't give a curse about a united Ireland.

Neapolitan · 12-09-2020, 04:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jwb

Oh ok. My Irish side is catholic too. So is my italian side obviously.

What do you think about the IRA and all that **** that happened?

When you have a spot of tea do you reach for: the scone, the biscotti or the hamentashen?

12-05-2020, 10:12 AM	#21 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,992	I'm certainly not a right wing nut. I don't even have wings. Do you? Wow. I wish I could fly. No, as I say I'm not overtly political, though if I lived in the USA I believe I would be a Democrat, while not really being familiar enough with either party to be able to say that really. I think champagne socialism is like this: big party, lots of booze, fancy expensive dresses and jewels (and some of the women as bad!) and over dinner idiots who know no better talking about the world's problems while doing nothing to help. Kind of like (stupid metaphor but gets the idea across) bemoaning loudly the hunger in the world while stuffing your face. Or, to quote Pink Floyd, "Money - it's a crime. Share it fairly, but don't take a slice of my pie!" __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

12-09-2020, 04:56 AM	#24 (permalink)
adidasss Slavic gay sauce Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Abu Dhabi Posts: 7,993	They're the worst. __________________ “Think of what a paradise this world would be if men were kind and wise.” - Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle. Last.fm

12-09-2020, 10:24 AM	#25 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,992	Apart from the Irish. __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

12-09-2020, 03:50 PM	#29 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,992	Yeah, you can never condone innocents and civilians being killed, but the IRA (which began as the IRB) was originally a form of resistance against English rule of course, and was supported by just about every Irish person. At that point, they only went for military targets and it was kind of a guerrila war. Later of course it became all about paid mercenaries and special interests, and the violence just escalated. We were lucky here in the south; had few if any bombs (just one I remember when I was quite young, in O'Connell Street) but we were always hearing about it on the news. It's hard not to think of the "Brits" deserving it, as when we saw the likes of the miscarriages of justice such as the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four that led to the old saying "Irish as charged", but of course you had sympathy with the innocents killed in the bombing campaigns, and the daily violence people had to suffer. Of course, I can't really speak about it with any sort of authority, as it was up there and we were down here. Heard about it almost every day on the news, but it seldom crossed the border. Sort of like, I guess, hearing about a bomb going off in Mexico, say, and being in New York. My late aunt's uncle was in the original IRA, and she told some interesting stories about he and other IRA men escaping - and she'd point out the window - down the garden and over that wall, with the British soldiers after them. Fascinating stuff. But a world removed from the IRA of the seventies and eighties, who mostly were just out for themselves and didn't give a curse about a united Ireland. __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

12-09-2020, 04:11 AM	#23 (permalink)
~~jwb~~ Account Disabled Join Date: Jul 2019 Posts: 4,403	Damn british people suck

12-09-2020, 11:32 AM	#26 (permalink)
~~jwb~~ Account Disabled Join Date: Jul 2019 Posts: 4,403	Which side are you from Trollheart? Protestant or Catholic?

12-09-2020, 12:54 PM	#28 (permalink)
~~jwb~~ Account Disabled Join Date: Jul 2019 Posts: 4,403	Oh ok. My Irish side is catholic too. So is my italian side obviously. What do you think about the IRA and all that **** that happened?