Real England

the black death would be unpleasant but would at least put fleas back on the map

emails are good not bad so they win marginally

Back in my day you'd write perfectly-calligraphed thank you letters to your friends after they'd kicked a ball in the street with you, now I spend all my time buttfucking the libs on Twister

"What you're confounded by is the noxious interface between this wholesomeness and the retreat into daytime television beloved of the Daily Express generation"

Well yeah. I like antique, I like snooping around for it. But by god all those shows with all those terrible, terrible people.* Trying to pretend there exists an England outside of reality, a cardboard England without Brexit and John Terry and Grenfell and the homeless. I get why it's made, I get the desire to watch it, but sheesh the dose is just too strong.

* except Catherine Southon, light of my life, fire of my loins etc

My mum loves these shows.

A lot of people do. Why though? Is it nostalgia, the portrayal of a parochial care-free England of yore?

I don't think my mother has much interest in England, to be honest.

the semiology of nostalgia - each antique is a reconstruction of what we have been told we've lost

I hate Antiques Roadshow but I could watch Antiques Road Trip all day long tbh. There's something horribly obsequious about AR, that whole thing with the murmuring public creeping around the grounds of all those fucking stately homes, it's this awful pantomime of arsekissing. Totally get the digging mentality of ART though, it's good to watch people who know their stuff snooping around following their hunches, sometimes fucking up, but not really giving that much of a shit if they do.

ART is by far my fave of the bunch. They could get rid of the competition element altogether and I'd still watch it.

the antiques shows are a blessed break from the "housing bubbles are mint", "let's make a housing bubble abroad" and "pigs and debt collectors are awesome" shows tbh

oh and "fuck my children's social life I'm moving to Australia to get away from immigrants" shows

There is some wry sport in watching the couples on Escape to the Country explain why they’re moving from large towns or outer London to the shires, obviously using words like ‘crowded’ as cover for xenophobia.

They bring out my worst knee-jerk class instincts and also their appeal is baffling at best

> It's all antique and salvage shows.

i find those are fairly harmless besides the pre-noon slots

Council House Crackdown
Homes under the Hammer
Dom on the Spot (Dom rides along with traffic cops)

which all reads like official tory policy.

I remember an episode of Don't Get Done, Get Dom, where somebodies dog got electrocuted when it pissed on a lamppost that was temporarily rendered live by some hapless HV electrician working in the area. Nobody was brought to account for this travesty!

My friend J and I have freelancer breakfasts where we watch Homes Under the Hammer and we inevitably yell SLUMLORD at whatever developer buys up a house in the Midlands to convert to an HMO. We got sucked in by the ridiculous music supervision and I must point out that our viewing does not take in Council Enforcers/Here Comes the Bailiffs-type shite.

Dom on the Spot (Dom rides along with traffic cops)

I've not heard of this show but damn this is some ILX quoted out of context shit.

xp SLUMLORD otm!

i cannot not think of lucy porter's description whenever i see Dom - Cockney Gollum.

that year it rained forever (2008?). I was on hols in Newquay, sat in a caravan with unrelenting rain pounding its miserable shell with Don't Get Done, Get Dom on the portable tv.

cursed island:

Spiders blamed after broken siren played creepy nursery rhymes randomly at night to UK townsfolk https://t.co/nQmhHcBL2l pic.twitter.com/jeVY6KkkeN

— Boing Boing (@BoingBoing) September 17, 2018

a spectre is haunting ipswich - the spectre of nursery rhymes triggered by spiders on the security cameras gazing across an empty industrial estate

you'd expect such routine twattery from wasps, but not spiders :(

the spiders aren't the ones who decided to fit out an industrial estate with the soundtrack from a horror movie tbf

yeah, why would you do that? the only people it would not put the fear into would be actual crims i'd've thought.

There's a Real England adjacent thing (that is def not real England itself)… the middle-aged sad/angry left/liberal white male aesthetic of now - Cold War Steve/Sleaford Mods/Drunken Bakers maybe three coordinates (must be more?). I'm pretty sympathetic to all of it but fuck the fandoms are annoying.

the middle-aged sad/angry left/liberal white male aesthetic of now

is that not just ILX? new borad description

Yeah I am aware this is some next-level narcissism of small differences. Quantum differences basically.

I think Sleaford Mods are very very bad, but sort of laughable - which might have been their redeeming feature for me - if I didn't find the music completely unlistenable and their channelling of Real England quite literal and wooden - but that also might be part of their appeal, and perhaps i just don't get it!

Yes, I'd rather listen to Mumford & Sons tbh.

https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/hull-east-yorkshire-news/let-it-be-hull-theatre-2051820

Police were called to Hull New Theatre tonight after a “fight” broke out in the audience during The Beatles tribute Let It Be show.

It is understood a woman and a man were ejected from the audience by security after an argument just as ‘John Lennon’ began to sing Imagine.

Hull Live understands at least six police officers and a police car from Humberside Police were called to the theatre in Kingston Square, Hull city centre , following the altercation and a woman and a man were taken away in a police car.

some folk just love living for today ...arrrggh!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fse0wAtcZRs

i know this one... "why the long face?"

hmmm

Today is septidi 7 Vendémiaire in the year of the Republic CCXXVII, celebrating the carrot. pic.twitter.com/QTJuj3dPjI

— Republican Calendar (@sansculotides) September 29, 2018

xp
"And with prices like these you won't get many more!"

Der Rabenmeister vom Londoner Tower https://t.co/1yeR3WVVnL #Großbritannien #Empire #Rabenmeister

— tagesschau (@tagesschau) October 20, 2018

too late to stop Ravexit you ridiculously garbed fule!

some weird contrasting real-Englandness today in my neck of the woods is while there is lots of casual EDL hate-speak in the air (re-Hudds Asian grooming gang) about 10 miles away from Hudds there is a Muslim festival attracting visitors from all corners of Northern/Southern hemispheres. You get some unreal sights, like imagine five thousand people crammed into a park that is barely the size of a cricket pitch!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dp81vuEW4AEjgrQ.jpg

der rabenmeister giving me unheimlich vibes

(x-post to FASTER YOU FUCKERS - The ILX Work & Productivity Thread)

#OnThisDay 1973: Staff at a Gateshead factory had their own DJ - "The incredible Del Perry; nice mover, sharp dresser" pic.twitter.com/15GO2Fcuha

— BBC Archive (@BBCArchive) October 29, 2018

everything about this feels straight out of a Denim/Go-Kart Mozart album, especially the combination of Bowie pin-up/Gateshead clothing factory

del looks kinda crepey to me but that is beautiful nonetheless

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/gemma-collins-comes-face-face-13508080

Gemma describes her new friend as “engaging and charming”, and credits Corbyn with being a man of his word because he prefers a trusty red bike to a car.

“At his age now - I’m not saying he’s old, old - the fact that he’s out there riding a bicycle and he doesn’t have a car... a lot of people say they’ve got beliefs. But he actually backs what he says.”

Most importantly, Gemma approves of his NHS support.

“Do you know why I love Jeremy? He wants to end hospital car parking charges.

“I’m not being funny, but someone’s died - a member of your family - and you’ve gotta put three quid in the meter?

"It’s just not the time. Your mum has a heart attack, yet you’ve got to rustle around in your bag for £5? It’s not the one.”

RIP Ton-Up Ron

Devon man, 102, dies after being stuck on roof for three days http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-46083703

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dq8fUMJX4AAhtYb.jpg

somewhere in the burbs, I can't work out where from the tweet.

South Woodham Ferrers in Essex AIUI.

I thought I was unshockable but I've just watched (part of) some video footage of a group of people burning an effigy of Grenfell Tower at a bonfire gathering and, it turns out, that I am still shockable.

^ that

what's fucking right with these people