Hold my head up, tell me I'm handsome

[alexsarll]

Still feels weird adapting to a world without Peel, as though we'd lost the Moon or something. The light was suitably washed-out this morning; time to grab something post-apocalyptic from the To Read pile, I think.

edit: from Momus' LJ, Paul Morley's Peel tribute.

Finished The Maxx last night - I love the way what first seemed to be Freudian surrealism all makes sense in the end. Well, *almost* all. Two questions remain - why was Artie/Gone in *Julie's* Outback in the first place, and how come the lamp made it through?

The new farmer-shoots-burglar case concerns Ockbrook, the village where I used to live and where my parents lived until earlier this month. As such, I've even more sympathy with him than I had with Tony Martin. Good on you, Judge Andrew Hamilton.

The proposed law against forced marriage is, needless to say, an eminently sensible idea. However, I dislike Baroness Scotland's assertion that "Forced marriage is part of no one's culture and I think some people conflate arranged marriage, which is consensual and perfectly proper, with marriages where people are forced into it. No religion, no cultural norm says that is OK. It is a breach of human rights,"
This is clearly an attempt at a gloss of cultural sensitivity, but as with renaming AD and BC CE (Common Era) and BCE, all it does is demonstrate a naive and condescending false objectivity. There are interpretations of religions which are fine with forced marriage. There are certainly cultural norms which say it's OK. Denying this won't change that. Be honest. Say: "There may be religions and cultural norms which disagree with this law, but you know what? Fvck 'em."

Yesterday's poll seems to represent a comfortable victory for those of us who are not rac(ial)ists and simply enjoy being nasty about the more distasteful members of the proletariat.

Comments

John Martin?

[london-imp.livejournal.com]

Should that be Tony?

Re: John Martin?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Indeed it should. I was confusing him with the brilliant apocalyptic painter. Not entirely inappropriate, mind - if burglars were transported to the midst of 'The Great Day Of His Wrath', that'd teach them.

Re: John Martin?

[london-imp.livejournal.com]

I adore Martin's apocalyptic paintings. Unfortunately, the last time I was at the Tate they had been removed in place of Stubbs' pictures of cows. It quite upset my afternoon.

Re: John Martin?

[jamesward.livejournal.com]

I went to see those paintings at the Tate too, but then the b@stard shot me for trying to steal his video.

Re: John Martin?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Concur. At the very least that big trilogy should be on permanent display.

[jamesward.livejournal.com]

Tony Martin, no?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

See above.

[perfectlyvague.livejournal.com]

There are certainly cultural norms which say [forced marriage is] OK.

You do know that the Lemony Snicket books aren't real, don't you, Alex? ;)

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Oh, you're so easily fooled! Snicket has to feign his own nonexistence and act through Handler lest his enemies track him down!

[wardytron.livejournal.com]

There is a school of thought of course which argues that being nasty about the more distasteful members of the proletariat is in fact merely displaced racism. Pfff, who cares?

[jamesward.livejournal.com]

The thing about the people who think that being nasty about the more distasteful members of the proletariat is in fact merely displaced racism is that they're tw@ts.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Only when they actually become a genetically distinct grouping, like proto-Morlocks, will this be the case. And by then it will clearly be justified.

It's not even classist, really. Plenty of my friends, and some of my family, are working class. None of them are pikeys or chavs.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

Exactly, I mean look at me, I believe in a workers' government, just not an ill-mannered malodorous scroungers' government.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I may not be a patrician socialist myself, but you definitely have your uses.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

I may not be a patrician socialist myself

Oh me neither, I believe in government by the workers as well as for the workers, but there's a clear difference between being a revolutionary and merely being revolting.

[invadergaz.livejournal.com]

For fair and effective government, there should be a basic ratio of 5;2;2, should there not?

;P

[mothersarll.livejournal.com]

Too fackin' right.

[lilmissmandee.livejournal.com]

Innit! *g*

[darkmarcpi.livejournal.com]

He only shot him with feeble pellets though, so, if anything, Andrew Hamilton should've fined him for not being harsh enough with the ammunition.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I think he should get a B - Could Try Harder. Don't want to discourage him for his efforts to date.

[thermaland.livejournal.com]

Having grown up on a strong diet of Molière plays throughout my school days, when I hear of forced or arranged marriages, my first thought is always "Why don't the servants plot to stop this?"...

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Yet more proof that you just can't get the staff these days.

[stu-n.livejournal.com]

"as with renaming AD and BC CE (Common Era) and BCE, all it does is demonstrate a naive and condescending false objectivity."

I've argued with you about this before, and you are still completely wrong.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

IT IS NOT 'COMMON'. IT IS A CHRISTIAN MEASUREMENT. I MAY HATE THEIR GOD BUT FOR CONVENIENCE'S SAKE I AM HAPPY TO USE THEIR CALENDAR. I AM *NOT* HAPPY TO ACCEPT THERE IS ANYTHING 'COMMON' ABOUT IT!

[and breathe]

[stu-n.livejournal.com]

"all it does is demonstrate a naive and condescending false objectivity"

That assumes that the renaming is being done by Christians as a sop to non-Christians. It isn't. BCE and CE were originated and are used by non-Christians. It's a useful way for religious people to be able to refer to a common dating system without using constructions which mean 'in the year of Our Lord' or Before Christ when they don't believe in the Our Lord bit, or in the divinity or historical existence of Christ. This might not be important to you; it doesn't mean it isn't important to anyone else. And people who use BCE and CE don't object to anyone else using whatever terminology they want to use, as long as they don't have to use something they don't believe in.

The 'C' generally refers to Christian era, not common era, anyway.

By the same token, I don't know any orthodox Jews who are offended by receiving Christmas cards. In fact, I don't know any orthodox Jews who don't send Christmas cards. It doesn't mean they have Christmas trees.
(I'm happy about having a Christmas tree, but it's an agnostic one: no angel on top! And I have a menorah as well.)

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Who did come up with it? I've usually seen it from liberal guilt sufferers raised within a Christian or post-Christian tradition.
The Christian era thing would make more sense (though I still wouldn't use it), but was not the version to which I was introduced.
And I'm fine with most aspects of Saturnalia because so little of it is actually Christian!

[invadergaz.livejournal.com]

Whilst most proponents of BCE/CE are "objecting" to the idea of the divinity of christ, or even the "nothing-more-than-a-con-artist-ness" of christ, there are few who doubt this historical exsistence; the majority just believe he was a brigand/subversive element/telesalesperson called brian.

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Ireland's had a few bad cases involving bands of 'Travellers' attacking isolated farmhouses. In the latest one, in Co. Galway, the farmer concerned is under protection by the Garda: he was a particularly good shot and the deceased (both of them) have extremely violent friends.

Me, I think the law on protecting your property went downhill when mantraps were declared illegal. But 'Isolated Farms' simply did not exist until after the Civil War, when the counties had a standing militia available to suppress banditry - and even then, unless you had a substantial property and able-bodied servants to defend it, you lived in a village.

The notion that today's militia, the Police, would not respond to any attack - never mind repeated attacks - on landowners or their tenants would have been met with shock and disbelief by our ancestors. Who would have laughed out loud to hear that the courts took any interest at all in any injury or death to robbers.

The countervailing argument is 'that was then, and this is now', and that we live in a more civilised age. The point is, we don't: it's not civilised if it isn't safe.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Pretty much concur, except as regards traps. My Dad used to work with burglar alarms and whenever anyone wanted some form of lethal deterrent he'd patiently point out that the vast majority of times an alarm is triggered, it will be by the owner or their associates...