I don't know if, as mr sg suggests, LoverBoy Steve has been fitted-up, what I do know, however, is that he agrees that he pursued a seventeen year old, a girl at an age where she is likely to fall for the seedy celebrity of an MP old enough to be at least her father and maybe her grandfather and that when Stevie was asked if this was wrong he said it was inappropriate, one of the most weasely words of our time.
In the same interview, on KiddysNewsnight, Stevie bragged that he had always liked and chosen younger women, listing his previous, shall we say age-inappropriate conquests. I must say, I find it a bit strange for a man to make such an open-ended statement: I like 'em much younger, for the logic of it is that he proudly rejoices both in a power imbalance in his relationships and in a presumed lack of sexual experience in his partners which excites him
- the same thing, really, I suppose, creepy.
It is not as though he said he had fallen in love with a younger woman, which is one thing, but that only younger women sexually attracted him,
which is another;
he also insisted that as a result of drunkenness his what he called inappropriate behaviour was understandable and thus excusable. I was only trying to seduce the kid cos I was pissed, your Honour, and she was leading me on.
It is all too easy for us to wax prurient, to tut-tut, but that does not mean that we should allow ourselves to be weaseled by the likes of this gobby prat. That Danczuk is not Cyril Smith does not excuse him but somehow or another we have allowed his verminous kind a license with the language that once would have been intolerable and with which they demean and debase.
A decent legislature would cold-shoulder Danzcuk, were it not, to a member, as bad as him.
His electorate, and the rest of us should make his life a misery, for what he describes as inappropriate, as though 'twere a small lapse in etiquette, we would, quite recently and quite properly, have called indecent.
A decent legislature would cold-shoulder Danzcuk, were it not, to a member, as bad as him.
His electorate, and the rest of us should make his life a misery, for what he describes as inappropriate, as though 'twere a small lapse in etiquette, we would, quite recently and quite properly, have called indecent.
36 comments:
He's being investigated for raping a bloke now, years ago.
No idea if it's just mud-slinging, but the established facts, ignoring the latest accusations, are that he left his prostitute/porn actress first wife and his daughter for the delightful and psychopathic Karen, who claims to have been raped hundreds of times by a family friend, then changed her story to accuse her own brother, who is currently awaiting trial for said alleged rapes.
After realising he was a drunken letch whose star was fading, Karen dumped him and he went on to another relationship with a work colleague and almost immediately started exchanging smutty texts with a minor, whom he knew to be a minor because he had asked her her age, abusing his authority to groom an adolescent under the age of 18, offering enticements like a foreign holiday, a criminal offence. Plod has declined to prosecute. The minor was no shrinking violet, working as a dominatrix when not exploring her vampire fetish, selling her soiled pants and even nail clippings to mental cases over the internet.
And this is the self-appointed guardian of the nation's children, protecting the vulnerable from the predations of dodgy MPs in particular, rooting out those in high places who evade justice because of their network of powerful friends and membership of the establishment. It must have been torture for such an upstanding man to have to 'review' the evidence of abuse and perversions, very fastidious in his research! allegedly.
As you have pointed out, the 'I was pissed' excuse doesn't help, it is an aggravating factor, not a mitigation.
You really, really could not make this up, it is over the hills, far and away beyond parody.
There is a lot more to this than meets the already astonished eye. It's probably only due to what he knows, and who he knows it about, that he is not in clink. Would not surprise me in the least if succumbed to suicidal urges and winds up dead with an orange in his mouth and stilettos on his feet. Either that or a drunken car 'accident', such a shame, was one of the good ones, tireless in his work for the community, personal demons, a giant of debate in the house...blah, blah, blah.
Lots of Ahmeds and Ranjits round his way who will not tolerate this kind of behaviour. That's their job.
Vincent.
Wow, mr vincent, I knew little of that, having ignored it until the other night.
He's not Stephen Milligan, though, is he, Damczuk, in whom those behaviours were so unexpected that they were attributed to the spooks having stitched him up, one of those weird things, like the spy who zipped himself into a holdall and died. Our man is clearly what most would call unsavoury at best and so this is unsurprising, further, his continued grimy existence is a positive advantage to organised beasting, isn't it, for he has tainted all who stick their heads above the parapet.
MPs wives seem to be as strange as their blokes - Sally Bercow, Imelda Blair, Christine Hamilton,just off the top of my head, being shameless, money-grubbing slags.
The great non-conformist, Corbyn, sat on his hands throughout the Janner years, the Smith years and the Savile years, preferrinmg to champion Irish nationalsiom, than the rights of young people not to be abused by legislators, cops, judges and clergypersons and no doubt will be all pompous and sanctimonious about due process with Loverboy Steve. What he could and should say without prejudice to any internal enquiry is what I said, that this Danczuk creature is not a decent man and is unfit to be a legislator; his agent and his local party, the local newspaper and the elctorate should immmediately denounce him and withdraw from him any co-operation whatsoever, as should have happened with Groper Griffiths, former Mr Deputy Speaker.
It seems that even common Decency, instead of being common, widely understood, is now the plaything of lawyers, a matter for definition in the criminal courts, out of our hands. Nigel Griffiths and Steven Danczuk are creepy degenerates, we wouldn't let them near our sons and daughters, why do we let them in the legislature?
His behaviour isn’t unlawful..so far. Nor, seemingly, does it warrant criticism from his peers.
If it gets too hot in the kitchen for him, he use the ‘medical condition’ get-out ,whereupon he will have to undergo ‘counselling’ . Lots of these types use it.
He was married to a sex industry worker was he?
You’re right you couldn’t make this up.
Abuse of trust
This is the key term in respect of the minor. It matters not that she had her own problems; the issue is whether Mr D stands in a position of trust or authority such that his actions should only have been to direct the young lady to the local college and suggest she re-train for a job with a pension.
s.16-23 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 are specifically designed to catch these situations where there is a position of trust to abuse. The question is whether being an MP constitutes such a position of trust and authority. (Hint: I think it does, but others may dispute). That does not mean a random grandad caught with a 17 year old is automatically criminalized because otherwise you cannot make sense of the AoC, but it does mean that the gent cannot stand in any relation which conflicts with a duty of care to that person. Ditto women in positions of authority.
In respect of the first Mrs D; she has apparently given an account of rape. While it is difficult to bring a prosecution without a formal statement from the victim, it is not impossible. What the Mail appears to have done is to print what is libellous and relied on the statement given to them. I am never sure how I feel about this. Rape is still rape within marriage and has been categorically illegal since 1991. No 'gagging order' can prevent a complainant walkinging in to a police station and swearing out a statement. However, since the complaiant allowed it to go on, it calls into question whether she did in fact consent.
The really shocking thing which I have learned these past two or three years - and probably should have realized sooner - is that rather too many people are confused about what constitutes basic decent behaviour. For a start, I would not allow any lawyer at any level to continue in that job if they have an affair with a client, no matter how adult, consenting and allowable it would otherwise be. As with doctoring, it should be utterly forbidden and always result in de-listing, whether solicitor, barrister or judge.
I would not have allowed Mostyn to continue on the bench or at the bar. The moment he had an affair with a client he should have been obliged to hang up his wig as an examle to the others. Lawyers who should have known better clearly do not as they continue to suck up to him.
Mrs Raft
I have been thinking, mrs woar, about Old Puritanism versus New Puritanism, the former tut-tutting and proscribing the latter avowing that there are no behaviours which should not ne protected by law, by enforced public approval and indeed by a novel form of tut-tutting, that, for instance, which deafened Germaine Greer when she argued quite sensibly that inverting a man's penis does not him a woman make, the same cat-calling surrounds those who equally sensibly say that if a homosexuL union is to be called a marriage then a new word or words need to be conjured for traditional marriage, for the two are not and cannot be the same. I have often, here, quesried the demands of gay men to be straight, gay marruiage is nonsense, contra-homosexual and it is not made logical by the baby-farming of Sir Elton and his wife, the New Puritans can burn me at the fucking stake but I will not talk their nonsensical babytalk.
There were two of them, anyway, on KiddyNeswnight with Emily Muscles, one a professor of Applied Transgender Horseshit. the other a spokesthing for the Man-Hating wing of FistingTranniesRUs. I thought that someone from my past had time-travelled into my kitchen and laced my camomile tea with with some ultra-potent mescaline and so, for the first time in months, I reached for some whisky. This must be a hallucination, Emily in her micro-skirt, on her left a great hulking, lunatic ManLady delivering a prepared lecture on the illogicality of gender terminologies on forms, terms such as male and female, when, clearly, we were all both, as well as many other, as yet unclassified genders, and please don't interrupt me because I am very important AND even my birth certificate was a betrayal because it said female, when in fact, I was a baby. The other one kept interrupting His or Her Highness complaining that if such terms were abolished it would be harder to chart the endless oppression of men and so had to be maintained.
Emily gushed that she wished that they could go on all night on this wonderful subject. They were a trio of New Puritans and they, Danczuk and the rest, busily codifying New Sodom and Gomorrah, made me long for the Old ones.
In presenting these bizarre, gobby minority freaks as freedom fighters the PBC abuses ITS position of trust; there is no possioble gender reassignment, no transgenderism, there is not even a persecution of trannies which needs to be corrected and outlawed, as there was, institutionalised, of homosexual men in living memory. What we do have is a bunch of apes baring their arses at us, demanding that we kiss them and insisting that it is we who are impure. Angry, ugly drag queens, what are they like?
That I am a rich man in a poor man's body and life is equally as compelling a case for treatment as that of Dave-turned-Doris, and probably cheaper and easier to remedy; just have the NHS gimme a hundred grand, with another ten every year, for lifelong follow-up, and at least, unliuke Dave, I'll be hasppy and won't ask to have the whole thing reversed, as they do, the fucking lunatics.
I've always thought that weasels have had a bad press over the years, probably predating even Grahame. Like most wild animals they are family orientated and do their very best at all times, no back-sliding there, no can't-be-arsedness in their ranks. Oh No.
That having been said, Mr. D. does appear to have engaged in some caddish behaviour which certainly invites analogies with the less savoury excesses of mammals less burdened with moral rectitude than we.
As for blaming alcohol, my old police chum used to relate many a tale from various magistrates courts concerning drunken behaviour. He saw one old soak hauled up before a particular beak and noted with resignation the expression on that aristocratic face as the sozzled one in the dock washed his hands repeatedly with imaginary soap and whined ingratiatingly, "It was the drink wot made me do it, your lordship ...". The magistrate roared at him, "It wasn't the drink, you disgusting old reprobate - IT WAS YOU". Using intoxication as some sort of mitigating factor for bad behaviour is usually doomed to failure and only adds to the amount of sin for which one is already culpable.
Dear Mrs. Woman on a Raft,
You are absolutely sound on this, as ever.
"The really shocking thing which I have learned these past two or three years - and probably should have realized sooner - is that rather too many people are confused about what constitutes basic decent behaviour."
Until recently, I was a member of a professional regulators' conduct committee. During a training exercise, a scenario was discussed, querying whether it is misconduct if a manager responsible for clinical supervision of a fellow, adult, professional, has a sexual relationship with that supervisee. The majority of those being trained thought that this was fine. How else, one stated, do people get together and make relationships, if not at work? As you can imagine, this disconcerted the trainer, acting on behalf of the regulator. The rebuttal of that viewpoint included the abuse of power, the difficulty of maintaining objectivity and the impossibility of managing a person one is having sex with. How do you review the professional competence of your lover, institute disciplinary proceedings, deny leave requests, fairly allocate shift rotas etc, and all under the critical gaze of the rest of the team, who will accurately draw the conclusion that the way to advancement, or at least an easy life, is to be intimate with the boss?
You will probably not be surprised to learn that these arguments did not convince those who thought it was fine. Freud and Jung both thought it was okay, no, desirable, to have sex with their patients. I would hope that their behaviours are now seen to be deeply repugnant, abusive and damaging. But is there a gender divide in opinion on this? Do men admire other men when they behave as sexual predators?
Do men admire other men when they behave as sexual predators?
Not in my experience. Those that I have witnessed in the past were pathetic then and are even more so now.
A sexual predator is only able to predate on someone who is willing to put out. Those who are willing are usually dysfunctional in some way. As is evidenced in the story here.
I, personally, have minimum respect for any man who sees conquest in a woman with obvious low esteem.
Freud and Jung? Pseudo intellectuals.
Reading suggestion. Peter Pan. The book had to back-formed from the successful play so a grown-up reader will see the joins. Ignore them and the fact that Barrie was a dubious character. What he had to do in the book was to imagine and follow-through the consequences of his immortal demon being in charge of his world, able to permeate this one, and having only one real mortal enemy, Captain James Hook.
This Barrie did brilliantly and we should take it as a warning. I suspect even Barrie realized what he had done and cleansed himself of the money by giving it to GOSH.
Pan has no coherent conception of right and wrong; the nearest he gets is he sometimes thinks a fight must be evenly numbered. He also has very little memory, and what there is, unreliable. He has leadership qualities but they are of a warlord; superficial and charming but with no empathy. When he does show regard for others it is in the narrow sense of maintaining his gang of the moment. Even towards the vicious but besotted Tinkerbell he shows no regard although she drinks poison to save him. It puts Barrie in a difficult position; at the moment his character is being most convincing and dramatically developed, he is also being the most awful.
Above all, Peter has no reliable way or wish to distinguish fact from fiction. He cannot even separate real food from imaginary food, but requires the boys and Wendy accept his version of events, even at the point of death. And he does kill the boys who challenge him.
Wendy's meagre triumph is that she ultimately stands against his version of the world. Do not waste too long getting bogged down with Barrie trying to work out his peculiar relationship with his mum. That is in there, but what mattters is that Barrie took the Pan character seriously (all of them are taken seriously) to work out what the difference is between morality, amorality and immorality.
The warning is that Pan's world has become our world. Too many people insist on living in Never Land and wish to kill anyone who challenges their fantasy. This would not be quite so bad if they would grow up in to Wendy - at least it would be clean - but they insist on being Pan.
You may find the text irritating in parts but the pearls are in there, above and beyond Barrie's arch Scottish timing. It took life and is a wee bit better than he knew how to write it.
Mrs Raft
I only ever saw the Disney film of Peter Pan. It would seem to be faithful to the story since even at the age of whatever age I was at the time, I thought Peter was a prick.
I don’t think children today would see the wrongness of his morality, just as has been suggested here, that the wrongness of the weasel above is not condemned.
The entire MediaMinster establishment, every man jack of it, conspired, in the nineteen-sixties, to damn working class Christine Keeler for the amoral, predatory and faithless conduct of cabinet ministers; she, then a late teenager, became Villainy's Temptress, became the Offender, whilst the real offenders beacme victims, their careers impeded.
I was reminded of this by the fact that we damn, still, the so-called prostitute/porn actress, yet not, generally, her client/audience. I suppose it is due to our residual connection to Judaeo-Mohamedenisn, our embedded Abraham. I dunno.
What muddies Decency's waters, as ms agatha relates, is this failure by so many to simply say This or that is Wrong, for fear of inviting the New Puritan cry of Judgemental! There are actually so few of these fuckers that it is astonishing, the power they wield, the damage that they cause.
Ever the ignoramus, mrs woar, I never managed to read Peter Pan, always finding it a bit creepy, like most fairy stories, from Hansel and Gretel to Harry Potter. Sick, as a child, however, in my Mum'n'Dad's bed, I read and enjoyed Animal Farm and kinda understood it, too.
There was a gay vicar story, before Christmas, mr doug, which provoked the usual, throaty roar of outrage from the New Puritans. Gilbert, a retired vicar had married Graham, formalising their love. Trouble was that this resulted in Gilbert losing his right to do that vicar thing, sermonising and solemnising things, as he had been doing part-time, post-retirement, the church, his employer having ruled that practicing vicars may not wed homosexually, they may live with gay partners, as long as they don't poke each others arses, but they may not marry. Gilbert, of course, saw the press potential of his plight. I mean, here he was, in his sixties and his former employer, the Church, whose canon law he had presumably upheld for all of his working life wasn't letting him do as he pleased, had set itself against what he thought was Churchlike and Christlike, even though it isn't. As far as I can tell the C of E acts relatively democratically in these matters, and this had been its decision, fair enough, Church Rules, OK, otherwise what's the fucking point of it, if some hissing old queen can demand that it change its rules to please he and his wife or husband every five minutes? All employers have rules, terms and conditions and Gilbert knowingly broke those of his employer. Now, the CofE hasn't damned him to Hell, it has simply stopped him officiating, as it said it would and as he knew it would. Cue screechy press release. And instead of telling him to go and fuck himself with a brass candlestick, the Guardian, the New Puritans' house rag, went on the warpath and its comment board soldiers all lined-up to sing the Horst Homophobe Song and to sing it at one contributor in particular.
continues....
continued
One man drew attention to this:
The Office of National Statistics recently said that according to its sampling and statistical models, there were around 200,000 homosexuals in the country, a tiny fraction of the population. I was surprised that the figure was so low but there is no reason to suspect the research and it remains there, to be seen. The homosexuality industries, Stonewall and such, claim that the true figure is six or seven million, a figure which, if true, would end the need for homosexual-specific activism overnight but Stonewall and its like believe, as a matter of faith, that all are homosexual, really, to some degree or another, figures and research won't interest them and why would they want to be out of a job, anyway. How can so few so dominate the civil rights agenda, why do we even listen to this silly priest, bitching, much less take up cudgels on his behalf, do we have no better cause than endlessly pandering to people like Gilbert?
Curious, I looked at the research myself, found it had not been misreported and looked a bit further. There are about thirteen million disabled people in this country, the majority of them over fifty but many, far more than there are gay people, under the age of five. Since the wretched Clegg and His New ShitEating Puritans facilitated Osborne and Duncan Smith there has been a sustained, unprecedented MediaMinster attack on weak and vulnerable people, many have lost their homes, their support services and their treatments, many will see their already miserable lives made worse, many will die preventably, some will despair and kill themselves. MediaMinster, including the Guardian, has supported these measures and their authors tooth and nail; there are too many weak people, they must be reclassified as shirkers. Among many competitors this is the biggest cuntishness of my lifetime and considering the numbers involved the media silence is deafening.
Take, however, an Ulster baker, who declines - for HIS reasons of Faith - to endorse gay marriage on one of his products and he is hounded from business, it is not as though the unhappy couple couldn't have got their wretched cake baked somewhere else but it was their right to persecute this particular baker, for not agreeing with them that in the Beginning was the Bum.
Or take the B&B people, who declined gay business and were equally persecuted. I can understand people feeling slighted, insulted, but that's Life, and as Gauguin said, Life being what it is one dreams of Vengeance. The insolence of office and the law's delay are our portion, singling-out a small business for destruction, in the face of everything else which is going on, seems to me to merit a good slap round the ear.
I would have taken neither of those retail decisions but really, what does it matter, people can take their business elsewhere, instead of mounting a bully pulpit.
I have nothing against homosexuals, bisexuals or transexuals, absolutely nothing; if MY thought dreams could be seen they would violate a thousand statutes, what business is it of mine, therefore, what people do in private, so long as it is legal, I also think that it is pure cheeky fucking bastardy to call me straight, as in staid, conventional and boring when I - and most heterosexuals, I suspect, are infinitely more convoluted than your usual homosexual. What I am opposed to is the domination of the public forum by a tiny minority which claims to own injustice, discrimination and persecution, whilst being, themselves, their most vocal proponents.
Steven Danczuk is a lecher, a libertine, a predator, a bully and a disgrace; and no matter how loudly wail his fellow New Puritans he has no civil right to be any of these things. If any of these women had a brother worth the name, Stevie would long since have seen the error of his ways, spending so much time down the dentist's.
That figure looks a bit odd to me Mr I. Which ONS survey did you draw it from? The ONS Integrated Household Survey, January to December 2013 (released 07 October 2014) found that:
" In 2013, 1.6% of UK adults identified their sexual identity as gay, lesbian or bisexual.
London had the highest percentage of adults identifying themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual at 3.2%"
The total UK population is currently estimated to be 65 million, which if one applies the ONS' 1.6% would equate to a total population of one million. I don't know what the figure was for exclusively homosexual. I suspect that the real number is likely to be somewhat higher due to under reporting by survey participants. However even if one doubled it, it is still a very small minority who, as you point out seem able to exercise a disproportionate influence on our societal mores, culture, laws etc. This is probably due to their being much more highly represented in the politics, legal, arts and media spheres than they are in overall population. This, together with zealous and well funded advocacy groups such as the one you mention and active 'thought policing' using the legal 'protections' afforded by the statutory regime of 'protected characteristics' affords great power to this interest group that is sometimes wielded in ways that are unjust (as per some of the examples you draw on).
Mr SG: '1.6% of adults'.
You have applied that percentage to the total population, I think.
You are quite right Mr Mike. However, I suspect that most homosexuals are born and not 'made' (I read somewhere or other that there is an evolutionary reason for homosexuality). However, I don't discount the possibility that societal factors could 'nudge' some who are perhaps marginal between one disposition or the other into a homosexual lifestyle.
Mr I: I don't think I am the only person who feels that in their lifetime I have witnessed a massive deterioration in the standards of life. My personal belief is that it was because the best people were wiped out in WW1 and WW2 and thereafter the gene pool has been degraded - many will not agree, but the fact that the decline has happened is plain to see.
Chronologically, it begins at birth - single parentism and working mothers now being the norm, that's not even to mention women who farm babies by multiple donors to harvest welfare benefits. As a species, the human infant takes time to develop physically and mentally and needs 2 parents for that to happen optimally - one sees this repeated in nature. Only a couple of days ago I was observing a male and female duck proudly sheparding its brood around the 16th tee. I personally believe artificial insemination is ethically wrong, particularly to a same sex couple; and as for buying babies like Lady Sir Elton, that's just revolting.
All this is apparently supported by the CofE - once the arbiter of morality, but now nobody goes to Church. Is there any wonder?
Next we get to school and university. Discipline is now absent replaced by a cult of failure being acceptable. You can get a degree now without even attending. So, a large number of young people, disfunctional since birth, enter adulthood feeling they can do what they want, that cheating is the norm, and having no respect for authority. Bad behaviour is tolerated, indeed is celebrated following the example of the 'celebrities' who lead youth culture.
The police who would once have put a brake on youthful excess, now have more important things to do.
The spiv politician, whose only objective is to get elected, must pander to the mob rather than censure its behaviour. Indeed, they pass laws so that they cannot be censured. Think Enoch Powell here, who was ostracised for stating the bleeding obvious.
Presentation not content is now the norm in professional life. Bullshit rules; its what you can get away with so long as it makes money. I lived in this world for too long.
So many things are now plainly wrong. We have commented recently on mass immigration, particularly from hoards who hate us and are determined to change (or end) our way of life. It didn't take long to kick off in Germany, but the reaction of the authorities is to suppress information, aided by the MSM, and to try to deny the cause - the standard reaction to failed policy.
A few thinking people have taken up blogging to express anonymous outrage, less they be censured or worse themselves. Increasingly, one feels the heavy hand of authority reaching further into our lives, and not for the better, more interested in controlling us.
Its raining here, currently, or I wouldn't have gone on for so long.
You mentioned the usual historian-suspects back up the road Mr I. I steeled myself to watch Empire of the Tsars, a subject that greatly interests me, but sadly hosted by Lucy Lisp - it took about 20 seconds for me to activate the off-switch...
BTW, when dealing with a 'damsel' of the night it is necessary to display a little equanimity. Watch and learn Mr Danczuk:
https://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=jCNDZY4vXPs
"I've seen him with a snake skin spoits-shirt...".
Well it should rain more often, mr mike.
While I accept that much has gone bad, I am also aware that much has gone well, notably in health care, inasmuch as that scrutiny of Power which does occur is unprecedented and in the fact that you and I and all here can communicate our disquiet over vast distances instantly. Education, though, is, I believe, a lost cause, many of those teaching unfit as a result of their own poor schooling, that being due in no small measure to the hand of the dreadful Shirley Williams; as its product I am not over enamoured of the grammar school system but I believe it might have been better modified rather than scrapped and replaced by school warehouses. Too late, now. The primary schools, too, have been watered-dwon by half-wits; none, today, can do mental arithmetic or the estimating of area or distance and the only capital cities which people know are EasyJet destinations; although poor, eventually, at maths, I can still mentally add, subtract, multiply and divide in a way that bewilders young people, who think it voodoo, 'ow you is doin' that, bro, when you ain't got no calculator, innit?
We could pro and con this all night, the single-parent family is here to stay and like you, I believe it to be unequal to the task of responsible and successful child rearing, indeed, in the unfortunately common succession of unckles and friends who now people a child's emotion al landscape, but that's just my view, single-parenting is the way things are and through our employees in government we must assist, by a mixture of measures which either facilitate work or support equally the task of child-rearing, the stay-at-home parent. We must realise that it is not the economy, stupid. If both parents need to work like donkeys, just to pay for accommodation, how much worse is it for lone parents?
The thrust of this commentary was that, somehow, we are laid siege to by a tiny, noisy axe-grinding minority of stupid, spiteful and anti-social people, let there be no mistake, this minority is not the unemployed or the single-parent, it is the gabshite activist, who will see us all fall, in a cause which does not exist, a hissing, corrupt mob which will admit only to inappropriateness, which is no admission at all.
I am not qualified, mr sg, to surmise the cause of homosexuality, as we call it, or its prevalence, for I do not do it and have never done it. I do not know the research you speak of. I have argued and fought for homosexuals oppressed by the cops and by state bureaucracy and I have read a few books by gay authors; that's about it.
If, however, I had a gun pointed at my head on this matter I could only agree with Gore Vidal, who argued that there is no such thing as A homosexual, just people who perform homosexual acts.
Agreed Mr I! Oddly, I passed by Mr Vidal once, many years ago now, on the way to the Lavatory at the Hay Book Festival, over the causeway, over the mud. I have some sympathy with his perspective on the state of the Amerkcan 'Republic' - though I think he would have been more at home in the Roman Republic, perhaps even the Empire.
I think he agreed with that, too, him being in the Empire, mr sg.
I may have mentioned that Lewis Lapham is ten times the writer that was Vidal, In his quarterlies he prefaces a topic - Youth, Time, Swindle and Fraud, Forgiveness - with a long essay so erudite as to take away the will to live, read and write, which is then followed by meditations on the subject from the worlds of art, sculpture, poetry, drama, literature, philosophy, scripture and photography, from Then until Now. Treat yourself, subscribe, I guarantee your pleasure, your delight, your wonder and your improvement.
I think that I've passed through the 'age of improvement' Mr I, but a modicum of pleasure, delight and wonder would be most welcome! I shall investigate...
Never too old, Lewis is an older gent and his writing certainly improves me. He does what we do, just so much better. Restores one's faith, he does, in the patrician-satirist.
The Danczuk thing, I fear, will prove itself to be a bit darker than we think. Really? Is that what we believe? This is a man who will pursue predatory ethno-religiously-flavoured fucking gangs at great detriment, one assumes, to his career, and who will pursue likewise the Westminster paedo story. Do we really think that he is that stupid? I fear that he probably is but that the good officers of her Maj's security services have not been idle either. "No fool like an old fool." Maybe that is code for something else. Didn't they call it a honey trap? Some honey. Silly bastard. Middle-aged men and young girls, eh? It is a story as old as time. I would give him a gentle pass at this range. But, true, keep my daughters home if he came to town.
The decay of honour is what the rest of it is about. The growth and yearning for the unearned equality of everything, even that. But by dictat and not the truth of it. Badged as an end to elitism, or at least an end to the elite. I want my rights, innit. The long march goes on. We are all levellers now. Two legs bad and four legs good. My only hope is that the fragrant Miss Jenner will be elected POTUS one bright day, and then the truth may set us free. And you want this too, my friend, as do I, but how is to be delivered in a gale of stupidity. The loss of religion, replaced by Gaia-worsip and suffer the little polar bears unto me. It was cant but it was socially useful cant. We need a map when we are lost - even a bad one is better than none.
As for numbers, Mr Ishmael, it is only yesterday that some idiot bemoaned the proposed reintroduction of the learning of one's tables. 30 years a teacher and still didn't get it. We had a test in this house for the primary school mongoslings - "how many legs does half a-million-and-seven cows have? No, make that seven-million-and-one cows! Quickly, you blighters." Needless to say, they are not frightened of numbers. When I was a kid, a mad teacher hammered such stuff at us every morning, and everyone answered. Bright, not, short, tall - everyone learned their numbers.
A neat, if roubling summary, mr mongoose. In the wilderness of smoke and mirrors which we inhabit Mr Spook is always a player and who knows what efforts are in place to discredit someone like Stevie. My reaction to him was more visceral than yours and based solely on his Newsnight interview, at which, had I been present, I would've punched him in the gob, trying to correct what you call the Decay of Honour. Had he even been a bit rueful about his predilictions one's rage might've been tempered but he trumpeted them, loud and proud, like he was High Hefner inn a cloth cap.
Yes, religion, I am always rying to persuade people to go to church, even once, just to see the theatre, hear the music, just to know worship and places and forms of worship; going to church, almost any church but especially yours, is the closest we will come to time travel; most would rather watch Come Dancing.
As to Gaia worship I am not so swift to reject it wholly, being a bit that way, myself. It's not that I lead a mediaeval life, here,on my far northern shore but I venture that mine is moreso than most, more elemental, much more necessarily respectful of Creation's power; the accentuated seasonss, too - darkness at the break of noon, just now, the Land of the Midnight Sun in a few months' make one almost feel the Good Earth spinning and tilting.
Yeah, I heard those voices, too, educators decrying the cerebral wonders of the twelve-times-table, like fucking savages; this milksop education, it's the breeding ground of dementia, shutting the kids' minds down before they even get going; they're idiots, man, it's a wonder that they still know how to breathe.
And that's just number, don't fucking start me on English.
I am afraid that I do not go to church, Mr I. (Although I think that I have probably done more than my share.) I recently stumbled on another up in the hills, and away in the woods, a tiny old church. A thousand years old near enough, like so many, and a Saxon lurking behind every gravestone. I think it might be a bluebell wood too. I'll try to remember to look when the time is right.
I did not see the Newsnight thing either but I will take your word for it. My point was that the silencing of the troublesome is best achieved by drawing them in. If an expenses whistleblower can be found the wrong side of a tank of petrol for the missus, he is silenced forever. If a noncefinder can be tempted to text a too young girl, he is done. The media love their hypocrisy so much they no longer see the mirror.
Last time I went was to Yorkminster, a few Easters back, and it was a message from another world, of gilded, extravagant, exultant piety. We used to do the Midnight Christmas in St Mary's in Warwick and at Worcester Cathedral, two of the Midlands' best, I think. Coventry, too, was a blast. It's like going to the RSC at Stratford, you know it's all hype and nonsense and narcissism but the make-believe is good make believe. Nothing to do with faith, my church visits, just the song and dance of it all. Surely you have non-papist friends, who marry and christen and are entombed in some of the old, Norman churches which litter your landscape, I cannot believe that you don't ever go into a church for some kind of service. I shall say a prayer for you, light a candle to flicker down my garden and across the ocean.
I think, in passing, that the media hysteria about Corbyn and all his works is of an order which I have never before seen; it is a wonder he has lasted as long as he has.
I've got one out the window, Mr I, if I need one. 8th Century - some of it, I think, and they recently found again the old colourful wall paintings from before the Fall. The problem with churches these days, these days is that they are all locked, against the hooligan and the petty thief. I would put a wee notice on the board, and hang the baseball bat next to it on a chain. Thievijng from a church should be beyond. Outlaw territory - like thieving from the voters. Ah. Oops.
So the passer-by cannot fall into a church as once he might have. Passing trade I believe it might be called. I heard though that the CofE does have an app. I must look to see if His Holiness too is up to date.
I hesitate to be unkind to Mrs Corbyn's lad as his sea of troubles is deep already but he does not seem to me to be the sharpest. And McDonnell is a donkey. What is wrong, I ask myself once again, with: "what is Labour for in the 21st Century?" This is what we are about. How can social justice be delivered alongside equity, prosperity and liberty? That's what Labour is for, what I am for, and that is what I am going to describe for you during this Parliament." Although clearly, I must be confused again. Seamus Fucking Milne? The man's a clueless idiot, I tell you. And have you seen what has happened to the Good Lord's Own Liberal Party? Good grief. Anyway, I must do wome work...
Did I remember correctly that The Sixteen are admired round here? They have their tour dates and (some) tickets up now.
Handel is in February and the Choral Pilgrimage starts in April. This index is a good, general links on the right, specific links on the left.
http://www.thesixteen.com/page/handel-dixit-dominus-2
The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba will forever mean a version played on a squeeze box and endlessly squoze in to the gaps between programmes for schools. She always sounded like a roaring drunk to me, shaking her petticoats and dancing in tapestry shoes with stampy block heels, yelling to King Solomon 'Ello Moi Luvver'.
Yes, memory serves you well, mrs woar. That Harry Christophers, unpardonably handsome and talented; the lives some people have. The Sixteen were the houseband for a PBC series on early music, ruined, for me, by Simon Oily Beale smarming all over it, Brian Sewell would've had a word for him. There are a lot of Sixteen performances on the you-thing of earlier stuff, as well as a Dublin - I think 1992 - Messiah which is exquisitely, I would say definitively performed and filmed. It would be lovely to see them, I do look, occasionally, but they rarely come this far North, I will click that link.
I didn't know about Mr Milne until you mentioned him, mr mongoose, and wonder why our representatives unfailingly appoint others to represent themselves back to us, how does that contradiction neutralise itself? I will speak for you, but he will speak for me, it's layers of the onion stuff. McDonnel, yes, another tits-up on the way and he's burbling about flood defences.
I've just read through this thread after a time away, so apologies for returning to topics that you've moved away from. I think I saw the article Mr.SG mentions on evolution having hard-wired homosexuality (not lesbianism)into the species. It seems that there is a part of the brain that, in homosexuals is consistently not as large as in heterosexual males and is more akin to that part of the brain in females. The evolutionary function of having males not involved in warrior and hunting activities would be that they would be "helpers at the nest" and the offspring of their sister would be more likely to survive than those of a woman who did not have a gay brother to help out. The mechanism of genetic transmission would be that although the gay brother would not be passing on his malformed-brain gene through his own offspring, his sister's offspring would inherit that gene. (Interestingly,there certainly have been societies in which a man's sister's children inherit his property rather than the children his partner tells him he has fathered.)
The evolutionary explanation, however, only applies to the feminised, nurturing gay man. The homosexual who displays exagerated masculine characteristics of multiple sexual partners, sex addiction,aggression and pathological indifference to emotion seems to be more of a societal construct.
Mr Mike's rainy day piece: I may have mentioned it before, but it is worth re-stating because it was a light-bulb moment that summarised Generation Y for me - the death of deference coupled with post-post-Fordism. I was brought up to be frightened of everything: the doctor, the solicitor, bank manager, any man in a suit, really, certainly the teacher; and the Times-Tables and Catechism were deeply terrifying. Now that was a Bad Thing. But to be frightened of nothing, to defer to no-one - is that far worse? I was a teenager in the post-Ford era and vividly remember the fabulous colours of the new Mini - there was a glorious buttercup yellow and a luscious blackcurrant purple. Choice in consumer goods had arrived. Now the choice is so wide it cripples - with so much to choose from,how can you possibly decide on one thing? There are magazines and websites to help us choose. Post-post-Fordism places the design onus on the customer. You can have whatever you want. Great. But how do I know what I want?
Put DofD and P-P-F together and Generation Y knows that it automatically deserves respect - you don't have to work at it, or earn it, its a Yuman Right, AND you are entitled to have what you want. I've had a rejected candidate phone me after a recruitment interview to tell me that I had made the wrong decision and I should re-think my position.It was a surprising conversation, not least because I would never and have never, had the balls to do that. Of course, I didn't go to a public school. Perhaps what is really upsetting is seeing the entrenched sense of entitlement and privilege which was formerly the exclusive preserve of the Upper and Upper-Middles taking root amongst the the rest of us.
I blame the telly, I do.
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