ForenSix Opposition - Politics in the Soon To Be Former UK in Autumn 2020

Lol

Tracer idk if thats fair tbh but i also dk if theres any value in the way its being done in that thread (from any side, tbc) nor in bringing the issues with that thread into the delve in this thread

If you get me

Lol was xp to egregious/follow up, etc

yes, i got that impression too. it’s ok/understandable to be frazzled, and it doesn’t really help for people to say “why don’t you get this? it’s obvious/simple.”

but it feels like there’s another text in that conversation that made me feel it was probably best not to post these thoughts there.

i would also point out that the 1992 fall single Don’t Take The Pizza, b-side Xmas with Simon, contains a line which prob sums up this caboodle as much as anything else:

Your brain cracks each day from information anxiety

and yes xpost to darragh.

I move to propose a fizzles hierarchy of certainty cf maslow/need but with a base of the contexts/items in/of which a given person can be certain and the rising and narrowing subsequent levels

I think that the modern person is being asked- cf that other thread some may set that as 'demanded'- to live within a certainty pyramid with many, many floors of many different levels of complexity, and at present its like a flu-dream of overspilling manageability

The things that slip to contribute to such a mass phenomenon and the things that slip during same are *waves, again, at everything*

And look i hate to do it because its not ever as true as you fear on times where the quote comes up but the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity is not a statement of inevitability but it is a very very fine nailing of a very specific sinking feeling in such circumstances

xref to rudyard kiplings 'if', by which i literally mean the opening if in that poem, and its a lot for any sentient body to bear at all

yes i've been trying to explore the implication of the fact that
(i) i instantly also leapt towards maximum suspicion at the "high-speed strain" story, as just too convenient (also i encountered it via a retweeted pesto post lol) and spent at least a little time guardedly defending this in a conversation, before retreating to
(ii) a "boy-cried-wolf" analysis that doesn't lay claim to knowing where in the boy's story we actually are

(i mean it feels like the wolf is HERE but this is a problem with metaphors for approaching danger. canary-in-a-mine also begins to bug out as a figure once you find you're multipying canaries to indicate mounting levels of of peril… )

my late uncle Jimmy was definitely one verbose Irish fellow, big words, Wordsworth quotes, he could mix it with pseudo-intellectuals or drug-dealing guttersnipes. He was a maths teacher but did a prison sentence in the early 70's for drug dealing!

Its hard to find a defensive bastion that lauds its own uncertainty as a rallying base rock xp

ah jaysus are ye doing the certainty bit in here now

i’m probably not going to put this correctly, but we seem to be discussing in this thread much of the exact same stuff katherine was being “well actually’d” about in the apolitical covid thread, except without the condescension

one of the problems with the strain is that there are multiple finely grained ways not to trust it:

• it’s not true, they’re just using it to explain rising caseloads due to failure of gov control and justify the need to reverse ferret on christmas
• it’s true and has been for a while, but they thought they’d get away with it
• it’s true but new variant isn’t actually that harmful, and has been overegged (see 1)
• it’s true but irrelevant, you’re just giving a name to a line that was rising rapidly anyway, using it as the lede is misleading
• it’s true, they couldn’t have acted sooner, but fundamentally unlocking doe christmas was always a bad idea, and they’ve retrospectively realised they fucked it.
• it’s true and it would have been fine we’re it not for that pesky variant.
• it’s true and the new variant was designed and bred in porton down to distract from brexit

And look i hate to do it because its not ever as true as you fear on times where the quote comes up but the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity is not a statement of inevitability but it is a very very fine nailing of a very specific sinking feeling in such circumstances

Reminds me of Lou Reed trying to show off in front of his audience by quoting those lines on his "Take No Prisoners" album and getting it the wrong way round, which he then left on the album because it was funny.

xposts to mark s

ah jaysus are ye doing the certainty bit in here now

― plax (ico), Tuesday, 22 December 2020 12:43 (eighteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Chrisht and tis

completely missed that shari-vari did the nudge bit upthread on a response to the question of masks, but yes otm.

import sincerity in music and it's a #onethread wrap foax

Keep that filth out of this thread thx

going to wheel this round england 2021 yelling “BRING OUR YOUR DEAD”

brb just going to wheel this round the UK for 2021. https://t.co/Ia4yXkkPXV

— neck or nothing (@tomwtn) December 22, 2020

fucked it.

import sincerity in music and it's a #onethread wrap foax

DON'T TRY IT

singularity of thread as a unifying goal and yet string theory has been discredited

my tweets are funny in in dimensions 4-8 and actually good and clever in dimensions 9-11

mark s did 9-11, thought it was good and clever

“Dubdobdee” is the onomatopoeic sound of jet fuel melting steel beams

Oh fuuuu-

the string theory crew is only here to make the scientologists look good, but you've got to hand to them they are funny as fuck!

Breaking: EU Commission recommends countries drop all UK travel bans, including on freight.

It looks like they have concluded that Johnson may have been exaggerating the threat posed by the English mutation. https://t.co/wOe8GFUgr8

— Dave Keating (@DaveKeating) December 22, 2020

Commission: “Until the end of December, free movement rules still apply to the UK. This means that Member States should not in principle refuse the entry of persons travelling from the UK.”

In other words, EU countries legally cannot ban entry to Brits until 1 January.

— Dave Keating (@DaveKeating) December 22, 2020

Can we ban them?

Bojo being completely taken by surprise that his "mutant virus is v v serious so I had no choice to cancel xmas no honest" cop-out lead to complete isolation: Good.

EU basically calling him out on this red herring: Also good.

Eamon Ryan confirms Ireland is dissenting from the European Commission advice which is to relax any travel restrictions https://t.co/vaUp2xwOwO

— Gavan Reilly (@gavreilly) December 22, 2020

We cannot do that under EU tyranny iirc

aiui, countries can restrict entry - and most of the EU banned UK travellers back in March. They subsequently agreed to coordinate future restrictions with the European Commission, which i don't think France, etc have done, but i've not seen anything to suggest that it's legally enforceable. The EC is correct that in principle freedom of movement still applies to British citizens but that's not up for debate.

France has said permanent residents can return as long as they have a negative test result but the border is still closed to everyone else.

Nearly 200 more Lords than there are MPs, now including Hannan, disgraced Tory donor Cruddas and Board of Deputies chief

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/dec/22/pm-rejects-official-advice-in-awarding-peter-cruddas-peerage

holidays are coming, holidays are coming...

Sound on! Hundreds of drivers stuck in giant lorry park that was once Manston Airport hoot their horns in frustration #LorryDrivers #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/46ZHP6Y62L

— Rebecca Barry (@BeccaBarry) December 22, 2020

Nearly 700 died today

thought you meant Lords and got excited

Boris flinging out those peerages like bleedin' raffle tickets!

also there was some grim reportage earlier about the morgue at an RAF base in Lincolnshire being repurposed for covid deaths.

One of the carparks at my former place of employment now houses a cluster of portacabins which will be the overflow mortuary if the local hospitals hit capacity. Security guy has been sat at the gate for months now with nothing to do, truly hope it stays that way

is there a world record for lorry drivers masturbating on an airfield?

— UK Govt Just Googled (@UKGovtGoogles) December 22, 2020

ebbsfleet geezer spoodge

" in 16 months Boris Johnson has appointed 52 peers to the upper chamber "

I wonder if Paul Mason has very vivid dreams about getting a life peerage from Sir Kier in 2025

the UK is a joke, I flew into Accra, got a Covid test and results within 45 mins of arrival... I walked straight through heathrow yesterday, no test, no scan, no nothing.

— Olujimi (@Lord_Oke) December 21, 2020

earlier I heard France had 50000 + new covid cases, perhaps their testing regime is better because they can't be fucking it up than the UK is

+11,795 in the last 24h and fewer deaths per 100,000 pop on average (91.09 vs 101.85 for the UK), but Christmas get-togethers will help them catch up.

sounds a bit more like it, that figure was quoted (possibly in a misleading way or maybe I heard it wrong) on Today earlier, but this is a BBC politics dept program. I think they were trying to infer it isn't exactly going well over there either how dare they treat plague island UK like this!

sorry I didn't mean Today it was PM