Yob Culture
We are once again being invited to have hysterics about the yoof of today, and yob culture, and once again Tony Blair presents himself to us as the father of the nation, pater patriae, the man who is figuratively going to put the offending yobbos over his knee and give them a damn good hiding on behalf of us all.
We the British public will never recover our individual and collective courage as long as we think that nanny Blair is going to deal with the problem himself.
Blair is not going to get yobs off the streets – you’ll have to
It was like being drowned in molasses. It was like being hosed in treacle. I was lying in a state of after-lunch torpor while the eight-year-old was playing and replaying her favourite track, and through the door it stole, and up the bed and into my ear until it filled the fjords of my brain with such glutinous aspartame-flavoured schmaltz that at last I could take it no more and cried: “Enough!” James Blunt, I thought, it’s time to get a grip! Come on, man: stop being so indescribably wet. If she’s so beautiful, stop standing there in your T-shirt and floppy fringe, and hush your hopeless falsetto crooning.
Go out and get her, is my advice, and if James Blunt seems drippy next to the rock stars of the good old days, he is positively macho by comparison with the Kaiser Chiefs. These are the weeds from Leeds whose hit single was I predict a riot, a tale about the bourgeois apprehension of a chap who tries to get a taxi on a Saturday night in the centre of town.
“Watching the people get lairy/It’s not very pretty I tell thee./ Walking through town is quite scary/And not very sensible either,” sing these epic softies. Then the chap meets another chap in a tracksuit, who looks as though he might offer violence, but doesn’t, and that’s about it. It’s pathetic!
When I was a nipper it was standard practice for a rock star to start the evening by biting the head off a pigeon and throwing the television out of the window before electrocuting his girlfriend in the bath and almost drowning in a cocktail of whisky, heroin and his own vomit. The self-respecting British punk rockers didn’t get up on stage and start whimpering about how they predicted a riot. They incited riots. “White riot, I want a riot, white riot, a riot of my own,” they sang, if my memory serves me correctly.
Let’s face it, the rock star role models of yesterday were far more thuggish, brutal and in-yer-face than the rock stars of today, most of whom are almost embarrassing in their niceness; and if one thinks back to the 1970s and 1980s, it is clear that the riots were nastier, too. I make this elementary observation, because we are once again being invited to have hysterics about the yoof of today, and yob culture, and once again Tony Blair presents himself to us as the father of the nation, pater patriae, the man who is figuratively going to put the offending yobbos over his knee and give them a damn good hiding on behalf of us all.
And, of course, he is right, in this limited sense, that Britain has long boasted quite large numbers of ill-educated and ill-disciplined young people. He is right, too, that under Labour there are more and more families lost in the bottom 20 per cent of the heap, who are simultaneously over-taxed and over-dependent on welfare, and who do not always have a sense of social responsibility, to put it mildly. But there is something about Blair’s solution that makes me ill, and it is not just the ghastly, patronising, mockney voice he adopts when he is saying something that he believes will have universal appeal on the estates of Britain.
What really depresses me is that these gimmicks probably will be immensely popular; and people will look at Blair blithering away about respect and say, yes, good on yer Tony, you tell them. Fine them! Send them to parenting classes! Confiscate their spray cans and send the whole family to the sin bin. Take their money away, even if it’s only on suspicion that it may be ill-gotten.
Asbo-lutely right!
My objection is not just that these measures are centralising and authoritarian – an objection that is unlikely to cut much ice with people enduring anti-social behaviour. The trouble with this stuff is that it once again lulls people into the belief that the Government is really going to sort out their problems, when the reality is that the whole of the new anti-yobbo programme, parenting classes and all, will be about as much use to thug-plagued estates as Blair’s doomed plan to march them to cashpoints for on-the-spot fines – i.e. no use whatever.
The police already have a panoply of powers to deal with these characters; they just don’t have the resources to be everywhere at once and all Tony is doing is intensifying the illusion that he, Big Tone, is going to descend on your noisy neighbours and bang them away, or send them on parenting courses.
He would go up hugely in my estimation if he fixed us with his glittering eye and said, y’know, there wasn’t a lot he could do, immediately, about the problem of these thugs, not with a million children being failed by schools. But what about you, he should say, pointing at the public with a Kitchener-esque finger. What are you doing?
I dislike his gimmicks because at every stage personal or communal responsibility is replaced by the state, and the more completely government assumes responsibility for problem kids, the less people will understand that part of civility is having the courage to reprimand someone for spitting on a granny, and not pass by on the other side. If we continue to treat comparatively small acts of thuggishness as matters purely for the Government, then we will never get thuggishness off our streets, and we the British public will never recover our individual and collective courage as long as we think that nanny Blair is going to deal with the problem himself.
The sad truth about Blair’s “announcements” is that they will play beautifully. Everyone will feel that someone is doing something about the problem, and everyone will slump back further into apathy and atomism. Mr Blair has obviously decided that his last months must be adorned with “eye-catching initiatives” with which he can be personally associated, so that no one can say he is going gentle into that good night.
But when the same old thugs and the same old families are causing the same old havoc, and the “problem family sin bins” have gone the way of other eye-catching initiatives he has promised, it may be that people will decide enough is enough. At this rate I don’t predict a dignified and glorious exit from Downing Street. I predict a rout.
111 Comments
Psi
Probably I was being a little strong. Apologies.
To MY reading and interpretation, it is NOT about self-interest, but an awareness of the rights of others – because any of us could suddenly find we are criminals because the government is out of control.
The first part is spot on – the rights of others are what we are interested in here. But we should do this whether or not our own rights are threatened. So your ‘because’ introduced the self interest.
I don’t agree with Mr. Haw but his right to what he does is the same whether millions of others or no one at all shares his views. If he has been stopped because he is an embarrassment then this is wrong. If there is a genuine security problem then this should be made clear.
The example of the lady who read names off a war memorial is clear cut I think. There was no security issue at all and, although again I don’t support what I think her view is (anti Iraq intervention) I support her right to make such a protest.
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Iraq Intervention. Hmmm. A most interesting turn of phrase.
The illegal bombing and subsequent invasion of a sovereign country is another way of putting it.
The theft of vast mineral deposits by a technologically superior bully yet another.
Saddam killed his own people, true. But the greater majority still lived in peace and safety. Now the whole country is a hell hole, the allies have been responsible for more deaths than Saddam, and the risk posed to this country is infinitely greater than it was before the war.
No, on balance, I think I am on Brian Haw’s side.
I also think that this attitude that the war had a positive side is the same type of attitude that Chavs assume to justify their anti-social lifestyles.
Meanwhile… I notice that the infantry are advertising for recruits at the moment. How long is boot camp nowadays? Just trying to put a timetable on this forthcoming war with Iran…
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Can you choose not to be an arsehole? Hmmm..
You could debate that point but I see what your saying Paul
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Psi
The war against Saddam’s army ended over two years ago. Currently the coalition is trying to reconstruct Iraq not just from the effects of that war but much more so from Saddam’s legacy.
Question – what is a sovereign country?
I don’t support Mr. Haw but I think he has a right to protest where he is unless a genuine security problem can be shown to exist. I don’t support Nick Griffin either but unless he is breaking the law he also has a right to speak. This does not stop me thinking that a world with fewer Nick Griffins would be a better place.
I suspect you don’t support Mr. Griffin but do you think he has a right to speak?
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Of course Mr Griffin has the right to speak. If he wants to talk a load of nonsense about things he actually knows nothing about, fair play. I would never deny him the right to say them.
On the other hand, with free speech comes responsibility. If he, or anyone else, fails to accept that responsibility, then they must pay the consequences. Inciting violence or hatred towards others is irresponsible. There are consequences. They must be faced. But the freedom to speak (only actually a right here for a very few years) is something that should never be taken away.
Ok, i repeated myself a bit there. Same words, different order, etc. Sorry. Very cheap trick, and i get told off for them! Hopefully you get my point.
And a sovereign country is a self-governing independent country with a chief of state. I’m not a fan of Fuhrer Blair, but if the (insert random nation) invaded to get rid of him, then i’d fight for our independence using whatever materials and means that i could to repel the invaders.
And the political mess in that middle eastern part of the world pre-dates saddam. In fact, i think it may well of been us that split tribal homelands (nations, if you will) into artificial countries that suited our ends at the time. As we sowed, so we shall reap i suppose!
Getting back on topic, and also “responsibility”, the problem with your average Chav is that they love their freedoms, but evade the responsibility that freedom requires. This is something that requires education, NOT legislation.
I’m not opposed to punishment – in fact, i’m a firm believer that, say, repeat rapists should be castrated using a pair of bricks. I am not altogether opposed to caning being re-introduced to schools (i learned how to behave myself VERY quickly – or, at least, how not to get caught…). Bring back workgangs too. Just make sure that it is all done with the proper amount of responsibility.
(still opposed to the death penalty!!)
The system, ANY system, is not perfect. And it is because of this that we must show our own responsibility in how we deal with those that do harm to others. We must also remember what crime actually is, and avoid punishing people for things that don’t do harm to others. And we must retain the stance that everyone is innocent unless proved guilty. Something that Labour are trying to do away with!!
Can anyone pinpoint when commonsense became uncommonsense?
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Getting back to the more mundane question of yobs and stereotypes (ahem)…
Jack’s note is as interesting as Charlotte’s. They both point to one thing: if you can develop a reputation as a victimised minority, you become a protected species, eventually becoming sanctified by the PC brigade.
So, chavs, go for the “victim” plea and you’ll become untouchable.
I suppose in some ways they are victims; victims of the insidious dumbing-down process that has been going on around us for the last decade or two. It’s hard to see where it all started. Educationists and teachers? The multinationals? Murdoch and Desmond? TV producers? The lawmakers and lawyers? Ambulance chasers and the compensation lobby? Human Rights Act?
Not so hard to see who’s perpetuating it!
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Those serving time generally deserve to be punished: they ARE criminals. (Macarnie)
i’m a firm believer that, say, repeat rapists should be castrated using a pair of bricks. (Psimon)
In general, my own view is that we should not be punishing people at all. Ultimately punishment boils down to injuring people who have caused injury, and is another instance of “an eye for an eye”. As Gandhi remarked, given such a law, everyone will end up blind.
For myself, I would look around for some sort of imaginative alternative to prison, where malefactors are obliged, in some way, to make good the harm they have caused, rather than in turn suffer harm themselves. Prison should be reserved for the minority of criminals who pose a genuine and continuing threat.
And, in addition, we should stop inventing new crimes with which to criminalise people. It used to be perfectly legal for people to use more or less any drug until the drug laws of the 1920s, and now we have thousands of people behind bars. And even smoking looks set to be banned in public places.
We are in growing need of a wholesale reform of the law, from top to bottom.
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Psi
Sorry to labour the point but the reports I read, which may be incomplete of course, indicate that Griffin has said some pretty unpleasant things in private meetings but there has been no incitement to violence. Does the Niemoller progression apply and should we be demonstrating against the trial of Mr. Griffin?
PaulD
Chavdom seems not to require yobbism or criminality, just rather bad taste as far as some middles think. One of my original motivations in being a leftist so many years ago was middle class snobbery about the working classes and people of other races. (I’ve still got the motivation but it drives me more towards Mr. Cameron nowadays.) What cheeses me now is the same snobbery about people who eat and wear different things. I am not suggesting a PC Anti Anti-Chav League. On topic, if we are worried about yobs, hooligans and thugs there is nothing useful or right about targeting a visible minority like chavs, any more than there is about targeting gypsies.
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Jack -
I agree. I used to be in favour of free speech restrictions in relation to racial hatred because it was obvious that no one can choose their genetic make up and therefore it should be considered a special case separate from say class, regional, national and religious hatred (although of course misogyny and its female equivalent should be placed on the same footing on that basis).
However developments in recent years have caused me to question this. We see so many attacks on free speech now that one has to question even whether the laws on racial hatred are justified. The application of the law seems to have creeped into all sorts of areas – so someone cannot make the point even say that asylum seekers are reducing employment opportunities for
citizens of this country (not necessarily my view by the way, since it seems the indigenous population isn’t v. keen to deliver Pizzas in the rain in the middle of winter).
I hate Nazis and consider that if they are conspiring against our democratic state, posing as “nationalists” and so on, whislt secretly planning to estbalish a Nazi dictatorship then they should be dealt with on that basis. I would hope Special Branch collect relevant material on such groups.
However, should we be punishing someone for saying how they see the world. I think not.
Of course it is a fine line. We should always prosecute incitement to violence (but when was the last time someone on a picket line was prosecuted for shouting “die scum” at strike-breakers?). Some cases may be borderline in that sense.
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It seems that this racism thing has lost its way.
The still white majority are castigated and even prosecuted for saying things which might,( and sometimes even do), cause the non- white population to be upset; even angry. It should not happen in a civilized society, but it does.
There is , however,a question which needs to be asked, :- Apart from such obviously clear cut cases as that of the Hooked Radical Muslim Preacher, Abu Hamza ; at present undergoing trial; who makes much fuss about the obvious racism shown between members of the different minorities, or even between the minorities and the white majority?
I am all for racial fairness, but not mere PC “fairness”. one sidedly posturing in a cul de sac .
Justice wields a sword, as well as a set of scales: a balance must be drawn or there is no justice.
It has been proved , on this very blog , that thinking people are perfectly well able to discuss racial and ethnic differences , rationally and objectively, without resort to insults.
As for the Mahatma’s wise musings about about, “An eye for an eye until all are blind” ,it should not be forgotten that , in the Kingdom of the blind; the one eyed man is King.
If the contributors to this blog form a reasonable cross section of society at large, there is hope for peace in the world of multi-racialism.
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Jack: I very carefully shyed away from saying that Mr Griffin had actually said anything offensive, going by my other point that people are innocent until proven guilty. Sorry, WERE innocent until proven guilty. I forgot Blair’s government was changing all that. I do not trust a single newspaper to report the trial accurately, and haven’t had the chance to go down the library to read them all (and divide by themselves, etc, hopefully leaving what is actually news).
As i said, i don’t care what Griffin says – to me it’s all a pile of manure, i have no respect for him or his opinions, and will happily argue my points face to face with him. I would not prevent free speech.
It’s up to HIM to be responsible for what he says.
Field: Saying “die scum!” once, you may get away with it. Under the new anti-terror laws, though, saying it TWICE could get you up to 30 years inside. It has also been an arrestable offence since the beginning of this month. Just so you know…i wouldn’t want you to get yourself in trouble!
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Whilst James Blunt and the Kaiser Chiefs have formed the soundtrack to my life for the last few months – this is a column of legendary value.
Though one must ask, with our new leader being of the iPod generation, perhaps Boris’s advancing years prevent him seeing the wonder of the Kaisers? Said with all possible respect, of course.
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If he starts complaining about teenagers in police uniforms, then all hope is lost.
;o)
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What ever happened to these people?
Grandmother-of-six Mari Savage and other senior friends in Margate, England, began a campaign this summer to wear hooded sweatshirts and baseball caps, in order to discourage teenagers from dressing that way, which Savage believes encourages gang behavior. Said Savage, to the Daily Telegraph, “Once older people like us get hold of (these garments), they lose all their street cred.” [Daily Telegraph (London), 7-14-05]
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Maybe Boris could wear University sweats and a trucker hat?
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All the people wearing police uniforms around here seem to be teenagers. I hope the ladies are over 16 else I’ll never get a job in a school.
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Jack Ramsey: Chav’s are not the minority. You are. Why else do you think your media is dumbed down, mass culture degraded and the mass market overflowing with tacky bits of kit? Its genus Chav.
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Charlotte
We may need to tighten up on what we mean by chav and do some research on numbers to see if they constitute a minority or majority.
I suspect I am a minority and probably a good thing for everyone else. Whilst I would love a television service with wall to wall Hancock’s Half Hour and Dad’s Army, the Dubliners and Shirley Bassey belting out of the steam radio and the Booker prize being won by George MacDonald Fraser, I don’t think the rest of you are ready for this cultural revolution.
However I am a little concerned when undoubtedly good, kind and intelligent people, such as the people on this blog, blame a whole group for deeds done by a minority of that group and of other groups. I am concerned by Islamacism – roughly a movement to introduce the Caliphate and sharia law – but I don’t assume that Muslims I meet subscribe to this unless I have reason to do so.
I guess culture is what you make it to some extent. The population under communist rule had very much more rigidly controlled access to the arts than is the case here. Yet there was, as Roger Scruton notes in a recent book, an illicit flowering of culture that ironically withered to some extent after the fall of communism. I am not suggesting an introduction or return of communism to revitalise culture West and East. That would be rather like in the story where roast pig is discovered to be good nosh after one was burnt in a house. Since the supply of houses was limited it was a rare delicacy.
The domination of culture by lowest common denominator churner outers on the one hand and the weirdos of the Turner prize awards on the other does not stop anyone from exploring what I call for want of a better term real culture. The excellent Naxos people sell CDs at £5 a go (5 for £20 in many places), you can get all of Dickens’ at £1.50 a go in Wordsworth Classics from Amazon, the museums and galleries are mostly free or inexpensive. If your taste is for non-commercial up your nose music there are good little independent music shops. (Sorry folks I can’t stand it but chacun a son goat as Mac observed, though what goats have to do with it I cannot say)
If all the people who lamented the dreariness of modern mass culture just keyed into what they like and talked about it more then we might spread the idea of a culture without prescription but with the idea that making a little effort in the aesthetic department may repay many times over. And we would still all have our own goats!
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I have to say Jack R. that some of the so-called ” music” being peddled today on certain radio stations sounds very much as if it might emanate from the larynxes of a tone deaf herd of goats.
And, what about Julie Andrews goatherd song ; Yodel- eh – hi-who ? Were they the choirmasters of the day?
It will soon be the 250th anniversary of the birth of a REAL musician: he had nothing whatever to do with a goat, unless Salieri had leanings in that direction:(btw zyx Classic CDs do a fine selection of Wolfie’s works at about the same price as your SAXON company )( Think about it !)
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Mac
The last time I met a goat I could not help but be impressed by the ripe odour. As to its musical ability I would not venture an opinion.
Inversely, I am reminded of the English lady who on hearing the bagpipes said “We must be grateful that they do not have a smell as well”.
(Before I get attacked by Caledonians, Hibernians and Northumbrians let me say that I like a bit of bagpipes myself. And goat curry)
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J.R.
What might have been a rank or ripe odour to you, would probably be as enchanting to another, differently gendered, member of the caprine family
as Chanel N0.5 ,
It is, after all, in the sensitivity of the smeller’s olfactory organ.
I too have a tenderness for the pipes, so much so that I can’t prevent the odd lump in the throat, whenever I hear them.
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Mac
I trust you do not think me speciesist. Moral relativism goes straight to my sinuses but I think a certain amount of olfactory relativism is only fair. There are limits of course. Reintroduce burning at the stake for people on buses who have forgotten where the soap is!
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You two are very funny. I hope you meet up some day; no doubt you would get along.
Jack Ramsey good points all!
You can seek out and get hold of most things you might want that’s true. It’s a bit isolating though at times. If your interests are counter culture there are fewer people to share what you love. Fewer people on the bus who have read what you have or thought what you have. Then of course there are things that are very expensive to make like television and film which become more difficult to make for a niche audience.
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J.R.
It sounds as if you have had a great deal to do with the great unwashed. Do you travel extensively in France ?
For about 3 months ,(until I eventually found a parking space ),I used to get the tram from outside Frankfurt ( Am Main) railway Station: if you think that BO alone is grounds for the Bell Book and Candle treatment , followed by the Stake and a Swan Vesta, you have not had intimate , although not requested , body contact with the Gastarbeiter hordes whose diet seemed , to an unschooled nose, to consist entirely of garlic and curry: in an infinite variety of mixes.
I was only on board the hugely overcrowded tram for about 1 kilometre, but I was in dire need of oxygen at the end of every ride.
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1. Female goats don’t really smell…it’s the males.
2. It’s curried goat, not goat curry (so a west indian friend bellows at me everytime i get it wrong!)
3. The french invented the bagpipes as a joke the scots still haven’t got.
4. As an individual, i hereby declare myself a minority.
5. Aren’t lists really annoying.
;o)
Psi
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Psi:
If nanny goats don’t smell, why do billie goats reek so badly? ( To our sensibilility anyway ). The aroma must be an aphrodisiac in the goat world, otherwise they would not reek at all.
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Charlotte
Of course we have this magnificent blog as an alternative to Big Brother culture. Vigourous proposal and defence of views, an e-camaraderie which takes pride in difference and a lack of pomposity (or else it gets punctured very quickly!). Perhaps we can all be forgiven for rambling off topic from time to time. Many thanks Melissa and Boris! You have provided a small but jewel like means of adding to the gaiety of nations!
Psi
In East Anglia it’s goat curry. These Johnny-come-latelies in the Western Indies of Her Majesty’s Northern American Colonies can call it what they like!
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3. The french invented the bagpipes as a joke the scots still haven’t got.
I recently heard that hogmanay is actually french for something.
But I’ve forgotten what.
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Since the thread has stretched so far already,the word ‘Hogmany’ has been in use since the late seventeenth Century.The old French ‘aguillaneuf’ ( the last day of the year),is said to be the root, but, since Lowland Eastern Scotland had lots of trade with the Netherlands at this time, Dutch words were absorbed into the lowland Scottish language (example: ‘ilke’ to mean ‘each’ or ‘every’: from the Dutch ‘elke’ which has that meaning).
If I may,I would like, perhaps with tongue firmly in cheek, to nominate a possible root from which Hogmanay might have grown: ‘Oog’is the Dutch word for ‘eye’ in English . It is not a giant step ,to think, that perhaps at New Year, the merchants swore renewed honest trade allegiances by looking directly into each other’s eye; thus the bi-lingual ‘Oog mijn eye’( roughly , look me in the eye)— bingo! Hogmanay.
Of course this is as likely as the imminent dicovery of the elixir of life , but a bit of fun , nonetheless.
As for the pipes, the Romans ; the Greeks , and not to forget the Turks, as well as others, all played similar instruments. Not all pipes are of the same construction, and their sounds are distinctively different.
As with the Dutch, Scotland had a long alliance with the French, so things do rub off.
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thus the bi-lingual ‘Oog mijn eye’( roughly , look me in the eye)— bingo! Hogmanay.
Brilliant, Macarnie! I will use this explanation hereafter.
I now look forward to your account of the discovery of the elixir of life – aqua vitae?
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On reflection, the bi-lingual ‘Oog mijn eye’ could be rendered into English as ‘Ogle mine eye’.
English traders did not just look into each other’s eyes; they ogled each other’s eyes. This imbued a far more profound trust than the perfunctory Dutch glance, and led to the rise of the City of London to pre-eminence as a trade centre.
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Idlex: Just a thought : the result of such ogling was probably the founding of the district of Soho, where much ogling still goes on ,( so I am told). Trade is still brisk , (in some commodities).You can’t keep a good ogler down.
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the article started well, simply destroying the modern music scene with its ‘pink is the new black’ thesis; then carried on well to point out the inadequacies of Blair’s new policies and the inadequacies of the majority of the public to see through them.
perfection.
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Once the practice of ogling was established, and one was ‘bound by ogle’, the boondoggle was born.
I think we are on a journey of exciting discovery here.
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…or rather, mind-boggling discovery.
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My understanding of the word boondoggles, (Polynesian : bundok,) is ” rough countryside consisting of dense brush”—- Not much changed there then. This word was imported , via Falmouth , and its use stretched slowly northward , throughout the whole of the fair land of Cornwall, until it was used exclusively, in its truncated form of ‘Oggie’ to mean a pastry parcel of delicate flavour, much appreciated by native tin miners.
By association , it was also used to describe those eating the confection. One can still hear the echoes of the word whenever the Cornish and other members of the celtic fringes get together.
I heard that in the eyes of these people,(some of them carrying giant leeks ),a rugby ball apparently resembles the original pastie, releasing primaeval cries of Oggie-Oggie – Oggie, whenever one is punted on the pitch.
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But then, ogam was the ancient (perhaps even Ogygian) celtic alphabetic system.
This ‘og’ may be one and the same as the ‘oc’ of the Languedoc.
Indeed, one should not needlessly multiply the entities. This was, after all, the famous maxim of William of Occam, also known as Occam’s Razor.
His maxim, I mean, not him.
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Idlex: When I lived in Bayern, albeit but briefly, I was made aware of this most English of temporary immigrants, i’e Gastarbeiter, Ockham Willie, who died there at the age of about 64, making him sort of permanent.
The church authorities, ( all powerful in Bavaria at the time) , called him either Venerabilis Inceptor,( venerable person of enterprise), or Doctor Invincibilis ,( invincible doctor).
Whilst in Bavaria ,he never shaved : he never played rugby; and finally he was born in Surrey.
Hardly a Celt.
I cannot, in all fairness ,accepy his claim to be the originator of that most Celtic of chants, Oggie- Oggie -Oggie!
What about that old favourite, floccinoccinihilipillification as a source?
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Whilst in Bavaria ,he never shaved
Quite apart from your other observations, this undoubtedly calls into question the existence of even Ockham’s razor.
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One may even wonder if Billie O’Cam was just some unshaven Surrey yob, with a particularly nasty way with a knife, who has somehow been entirely mistakenly mis-identified as a leading Scholastic.
I wonder how many other cases of mistaken identity are out there waiting to be discovered?
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My goodness, y’all have some powerful booze over there.
George Macdonald Fraser is to literary fiction what Shirley Bassey is to opera. The dance mix is always better. Surely there is a Hyacinth Bucket Literary Prize for which he could be nominated?
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The law of parsimony( The famed Razor).
Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate; “Plurality should not be posited without necessity.”
Although a theologian, our Billie’s school of thought denied the concept of a father having any reality,apart from the signifcance of the term . Most disturbing thought really: it’s no wonder he didn’t shave.
Attention Andrew Lloyd Webber!
Cue musical ?
I for one , am exhausted, (as I think is this detour).
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I’ll make sweet music with you *one eyebrow raised*, Mz Macarnie! Hehe… Sorry Kevin, I will remain loyal and faithful to you as long as our marriage documents survive…
WHAT? THEY DON’T! bah.
P.S. What? Surrey yobs? *Ahem*
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Halleluja !!
Ewe are at long last back, presumably to face the music. We should perhaps, celebrate this particular re-union with a rendering of,” And sheep shall safely graze”, as a starter, with perhaps a particularly dirgeful rendering of the 23rd Psalm as a follow up.
Either way the crozier is definitely called for.
Kevin seems to have disappeared, rather mysteriously,without a trace, probably up his own exhaust pipe. What did you say to him ? His wife’s name , as far as anyone could tell, was of no importance.
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Slightly ,( but not entirely ) off topic : is it possible to accuse a corporation of yobbishness ?
If so the title YOB might be applied to each member of those PC idiot bands of BBC mandarins, who propose to banish the Radio 4 theme tune: it is to be ignominiously damned as being nationalistic .
Will they now decide that the BBC itself is too nationalistic because it harbours un-PC sentiments in its very title: BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION?
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Mac
You probably know already but there is a petition at
http://www.savetheradio4theme.co.uk/
I recall that when the sprogs were very early at getting up that theme indicated that in just another 2 and a half hours I could go to work! It also brings back memories of the early morning holiday dash to the ferry. And I like it very much!
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Thanks Jack ; I have already registered my views on that petition.
I am sick and tired of having to listen to the mewlings and pukings of the PC brigade, If they belonged to an endangered species , I would not contribute one brass farthing to the cause of saving it.
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I think the PC’s are prevented from breeding by their belief that heterosexual sex is by definition an act of sexism, so no worries there. I don’t think anyone who graduated from Antioch ever got laid.
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Mac
On another tuneful matter Google lead me to believe that today is the 250th of young Wolfgang. As I recall you are a devotee so happy listening! Spin a disc and confusion to the PC brigade!
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I am listening , as I write , to his piano concerto No, 21 , aka Elvira Madigan. Brilliant! Thanks Jack.
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