"we'll change the things that need changing and that's all we'll change": the paSUKification of post-brexit politics 2021

looking forward to two white Britdudes explaining the history and meaning of "woke" tho

hopefully they'll do an episode about the political connotations of "bald"

I have seen one person mocking it so posted it here. Just made a cup of tea, now to enjoy the next 100 tweets mocking this.

my (possibly unpopular) line on DL is that his high concepts are often good (the protest songs book, the interpretations-of-1984 book, this*) -- but that he is then categorically the worst person to then tackle them (except for big dunty lol)

*i mean it's a reworking of raymond williams's keywords and more annoyingly still it's an idea i've had knocking around my own head for years (but of course it never left my head because a. i am shit at pitching and b. ppl say no not yes to my good ideas so i never get round to doing anything with them)

then then

a reworking of RW's Keywords:

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/keywords-for-today-9780190636579?cc=gb&lang=en&

https://www.keywords.pitt.edu/about-book.html

also:

https://academic.oup.com/fs/article-abstract/68/2/241/607810

it's a good idea if someone good does it!

feel like i was dimly aware of the mccabe book tho as a non-admirer of his godard book i am not convinced he *is* "someone good" (the couple of times i met when he headed the bfi he was very affable)

I can see how his involvement with that project could raise doubts, but equally relevant to say that it's a group effort with lots of people involved - not sure how much text CMac actually contributed.

https://i.imgur.com/2WeanRI.png

https://i.imgur.com/0oIrj7d.png

some classic low-budg podcast illustration work right there

zap! pow! politics aren't just for balds anymore!

someone better at the internet than me can make the sausage_flies_into_picture.gif

shave vs keep short; two approaches to baldness. they should get a third guy with a combover for balance.

https://www.artalistic.com/en/media/blog/images/Roy_Lichtenstein_1.jpg

"I lived a few weeks ..before I realised what a tragically bald melt you are"

kickstarter to add the flying sausage to *every* image with giant ben day dots

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0bpyszs

We're actually doing the fucking research. We've been working on this thing for a year. Each episode has had weeks of work poured into it.

the cleverest balds in the room have done their fucking research this time, that is very impressive.

this time, no doubt fans of Remainiacs and Oh God, What Next? will notice a discernible improvement now they are the only podcasters in town that do the fucking research.

DL's superhero name cld be The Spectator

Balder The Brave(s)

the word "city" has become practically meaningless now that Doncaster is one.

And Reading continues not to be one, sob sob apparently.

I'm afraid all the billions of dollars of FDI will be all be flooding into Doncaster and Bangor now, better luck next time.

Colchester also!

"England's oldest recorded town" is no longer a town.

(I seem to remember poster Imago and me discussing the place.)

and Milton Keynes, one of the newer made-up towns with a made-up football club. If it looks and feels like a Town, has a sub 250k population, then it is actually is a Town imo.

all towns are made up when u think abt it

Goole is a long-running practical joke, true

oh I know all Towns are made up, but a newish post-war overspill one like MK is trying to run before it can walk, if there was no history of dark satanic mills and Luddite activity then it isn't a proper town. I'm making the rules here!

Lol Goole actually bid for city status

Local councils and their attendant hangers-on are the worstest

Seriously just make everywhere a city who cares?

Come to think of it, destroy the UK and turn it into 200-odd city states just for fun

A town has been "left behind to decay" after missing out on city status for a second time, a business owner has said...

lol, what a bunch of Gooles

I know this one, a city is when a representative gets murdered

The EU Cities fund is gone now, and the only recent extra government investment was that one-off bribe Towns Fund. Where I live got some, but I haven't seen any evidence of infrastructure or aesthetic improvement. Maybe if they keep voting Tory....

xp

I had grim lol at that one, but will be careful not to post any more than that!

Reading some "We never wanted to be a city anyway, fuck the Queen" stuff from people from Paisley on Facebook. They doth protest too much me'hinks.

This is the worst thing anyone has ever made

WWII veteran John Pearce is releasing a single to honour the Queen's Platinum Jubilee.

“She was a real inspiration during the war and has continued to lead by example."

Thank You Your Majesty is a reworking of Go West by The Village People.

📺 Freeview 237, Sky 526, Virgin 627 pic.twitter.com/ZHjqZn0qEX

— TalkTV (@TalkTV) May 20, 2022

Even worse than the Captain Tom Moore song, the 23 seconds of it I could stand anyway

And Reading continues not to be one, sob sob apparently.

― Mark G, Friday, 20 May 2022 16:34 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I did think wtf what about Reading when I read the city news. It's 21 years since I moved away but I do think it's a bit ridiculous that a town with over 300,000 people is still not a city. Officially apparently Northampton is the biggest town in England because half of Reading's population is outside the city limits though.

I've been on a few away trips to Sixfields in my time and the impression I got from my limited exploration of the place (and it was a football excursion not an Ian Nairn trip) was that Northampton is distinctly NOT a big town!

Xpost yeah we can walk into the centre of Reading in 20 mins, but we are officially in Wokingham borough.

I'm fond of Sixfields.

Fairly random question - is the higher education system in the UK set to survive the pandemic and brexit? Will Oxford and Cambridge and all the preparatory schools always be determinants of your future?

as long as the existing class/economic/social nexus stands than yeah

not just surviving but thriving

Is there a chance that Cambridge could surpass Oxford, if anyone cares, on account of its strengths in the sciences?

Will rhetoric always be so important in making an impression?

My apologies for any false premises in the questions above.

Is meritocracy a set up?

a veneer on top of the set up maybe

i'm not in the place this morning to deeply pull at this but i guess you need to distinguish between the ruling forces within the UK, the economic base and its rulers on an intersecting global level, where the money that bolsters the power comes from, how they interact, how the media and adjacent social forces serve this and how they relate to it

on a very fundamental level the ruling class in the UK isn't different now than it was in 1800 except in trivial presentational ways