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fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 3292
Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
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 Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2016 8:29 pm Post subject: |
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| Phil_K wrote: |
| fluffyhamster wrote: |
A good start might be to actually read broadsheets like the Guardian (even if you have to wear a nosepeg to make it through sometimes). Comment is Free etc. |
I do read (and comment) in the Guardian, as it's the only one that's completely free online. It's a lot of fun, as the same commenters are probably the same people responsible for any (perceived) decline in our great country. If you regularly read CiF on the more controversial subjects, you can probably even guess my alias!  |
What sort of reception do you get there then, Phil? Any "Top 10" discussions you could point us to?  |
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Phil_K
Joined: 25 Jan 2007
Posts: 2041
Location: A World of my Own
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| Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2016 8:33 pm Post subject: |
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| What sort of reception do you get there then, Phil? Any "Top 10" discussions you could point us to? |
No clues, but I'm definitely the devil's advocate (not troll, because I believe what I say), but I'm usually in a minority of about 3, as you can imagine! |
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fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 3292
Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
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| Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2016 8:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Names like stratagem and Captain Grey possibly spring to mind, but I actually find it quite hard to spot DAs or trollers or PITAs or whatever, especially when I'm not personally involved in the discussion (I'm not a commenter on CiF, anyway). Plus I try to give everyone a fair shake, even if that leaves me undecided. I don't think it's my imagination however that society has become a lot more unfair and pressur(iz)ed. I just hope things can be resolved or defused before any really extreme solutions start being sought. |
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fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 3292
Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
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| Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2016 9:04 pm Post subject: |
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First they came for the miners. Then they came for the doctors and teachers, and then the steelworkers. Finally, they came for the kleptocratic neofascists.
Oh no, wait, I got that last part wrong, just a misremembered cautionary tale. |
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Knedliki
Joined: 08 May 2015
Posts: 160
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| Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2016 6:48 am Post subject: |
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Maybe the Sheikh and Phil can give some examples of how everything is peachy in the UK.
I imagine it'll be along the lines of "I've got enough money for a coffee , what's everyone moaning about". With the joined up thinking skills of Trump who dismisses climate change because it's a bit chilly today. |
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johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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gregory999
Joined: 29 Jul 2015
Posts: 372
Location: 999
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| Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2016 11:50 am Post subject: |
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| Knedliki wrote: |
Maybe the Sheikh and Phil can give some examples of how everything is peachy in the UK.
I imagine it'll be along the lines of "I've got enough money for a coffee , what's everyone moaning about". With the joined up thinking skills of Trump who dismisses climate change because it's a bit chilly today. |
Panama Papers have revealed that Britain is living in a double vision, and it slips further down the international league tables of corruption!
The Panama Papers show why Britain needs to get its house in order
While indignant Icelanders at once massed in the real and the virtual worlds, and forced their beleaguered prime minister to resign; while the German justice minister promised urgent new legislation to end the anonymity of company owners, and the US authorities threatened swift action against tax delinquents, what was the UK government doing? The prime minister was insisting that the UK was on the frontline of the global struggle against corruption and denying that he held shares in an offshore company run by his late father. And that was pretty much that, because, even after seeing the Guardian front page and a paltry half-hour’s BBC Panorama on Monday, we are too jaded and resigned to go rushing the gates of Downing Street. We have heard it all before.
We are also good at lecturing those same countries on respect for the “rule of law”. We – and government ministers and NGOs on our behalf – show the same condescension towards continental Europeans, especially southern Europeans, whom we regard collectively as more “tolerant” of corruption than we are. It’s a cultural thing, of course.
Yet this is not how others see us. Practically every year, the UK slips further down the international league tables of corruption, as compiled by the NGO Transparency International. When David Cameron and others talk, as they have done at length, about the need to clean up international finance, make global companies such as Google pay their tax and root out money laundering across the world, there is always snickering, if not outright laughter, in the aisles.
http://www.theguardian.com/news/commentisfree/2016/apr/05/panama-papers-britain-house-order-cameron
Indeed, Britain needs to get its house in order.
sheikh, tighten your belt, gloomy time is coming to the UK ... taxes will rise again!  |
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sheikh radlinrol
Joined: 30 Jan 2007
Posts: 1222
Location: Spain
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| Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2016 11:50 am Post subject: |
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| Knedliki wrote: |
Maybe the Sheikh and Phil can give some examples of how everything is peachy in the UK.
I imagine it'll be along the lines of "I've got enough money for a coffee , what's everyone moaning about". With the joined up thinking skills of Trump who dismisses climate change because it's a bit chilly today. |
Who said everything is peachy in the UK? Not me, guv.  Therefore, no examples of peachiness from me. However, I found it odd to read that my dear homeland is ¨going down the toilet¨. These days in Spain the UK is seen as a land of opportunity. Only last weekend I was reading of the worries of some young, educated Spaniards who, having abandoned Spain because of the crisis and fled to the UK, now saw BREXIT as a threat to what they had achieved there. |
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Phil_K
Joined: 25 Jan 2007
Posts: 2041
Location: A World of my Own
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| Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2016 1:54 pm Post subject: |
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| The UK has an inherent peachiness. There are always maggots in the peach, of course. During our great empire-building days, many people didn't see the peach, but it was peachy all the same. Life wasn't too peachy during the World Wars for many people, but there was a peachy spirit which tided us over until people could taste the peaches once again. The socialist 1970s were full of rotten peaches, and peaches were hard to find, but peaches there were. Now, the maggots in the peach are those that insist there are no peaches left, while the rest of us continue planting the peach trees and try to keep the maggots at bay. |
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sheikh radlinrol
Joined: 30 Jan 2007
Posts: 1222
Location: Spain
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| Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2016 2:08 pm Post subject: |
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| I agree with Phil that the 1970s weren´t very peachy years but we did have the Stranglers walking on the beaches looking at the peaches. Do you remember? |
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Phil_K
Joined: 25 Jan 2007
Posts: 2041
Location: A World of my Own
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| Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2016 2:15 pm Post subject: |
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| Yes! And they predicted the political future with their song 'Gordon Brown' (...texture like sun). |
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scot47
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 15343
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| Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2016 4:40 pm Post subject: |
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| After the 1970s it all went wrong. |
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sheikh radlinrol
Joined: 30 Jan 2007
Posts: 1222
Location: Spain
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| Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2016 5:09 pm Post subject: |
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| scot47 wrote: |
| After the 1970s it all went wrong. |
The 1970s was a dismal decade in the UK. We were the ¨sick man of Europe¨. Our clothes were ridiculous. There was, however, one good thing about being a youth in 1970s UK. In the 1960s the birth pill appeared and in the 1980s we started to worry about AIDS.  |
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fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 3292
Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
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| Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2016 6:40 pm Post subject: |
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So we are now the healthiest man in Europe and everybody is wealthier and happier than they were in the 1970s, especially since collective bargaining has all but been made illegal and the free market of course costs far less than the wasteful public sector.
Yes, I don't know about anyone else, but I'm looking forward to having a reasonable pension and other dividends rolling in with no worries about mortgages or <shudder> paying rent. No, people PAY ME rent. It's what I'm good at. I'm Lord Doneabit. |
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sheikh radlinrol
Joined: 30 Jan 2007
Posts: 1222
Location: Spain
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| Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2016 6:50 pm Post subject: |
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| fluffyhamster wrote: |
| So we are now the healthiest man in Europe and everybody is wealthier and happier than they were in the 1970s, |
Who said that? Straw man argument. |
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