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Oh yeah did you not know about paul's time machine?
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Oct 11, 2020 18:29
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This seems in the wheelhouse of the thread. Anyone know any good books about the history of the British railways? Especially the period from nationalisation until the post-Beeching cuts
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Oct 11, 2020 18:31
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forkboy84 posted:This seems in the wheelhouse of the thread. Anyone know any good books about the history of the British railways? Especially the period from nationalisation until the post-Beeching cuts Christian Wolmar is usually a good shout for railway stuff.
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Oct 11, 2020 18:41
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forkboy84 posted:This seems in the wheelhouse of the thread. Anyone know any good books about the history of the British railways? Especially the period from nationalisation until the post-Beeching cuts Cabin 
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Oct 11, 2020 18:50
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OwlFancier posted:Oh yeah did you not know about paul's time machine? Spectacular it coming up in the course of Paul lamenting the inauthentic nature of smartphones and social media. They are if all you use them for is telling lies and talking bollocks Paul.
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Oct 11, 2020 18:57
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Speaking of the Pissing Planet, does anyone have the supercut (if that's the appropriate word) video of him saying "PENIS! SCROTUM!" on a loop or was I really drunk and imagined that video existed
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Oct 11, 2020 18:59
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I don't recall than one and I am not googling "paul joseph watson penis scrotum." Who am I kidding *opens private tab*
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Oct 11, 2020 19:01
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I also want to see the pjw penoscrotal continuum if you find it. E: apparently the rest of the UK is also keen given that "testicles" is trending on twitter.  (will try to remember to write these out re: screenreading earlier) OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 19:06 on Oct 11, 2020 |
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Oct 11, 2020 19:02
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https://twitter.com/johnmcdonnellMP/status/1315349825873903624?s=19
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Oct 11, 2020 19:26
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forkboy84 posted:This seems in the wheelhouse of the thread. Anyone know any good books about the history of the British railways? Especially the period from nationalisation until the post-Beeching cuts Christian Wolmar's Fire & Steam: A New History of Railways in Britain is a good overall overlook from the earliest days to the present (well, 2009). The Railways: Nation, Network & People by Simon Bradley is another overall history, but focussing more on the world of the railways themselves (what they were like for passengers and workers) and the broader social and cultural changes they wrought in Britain over time. Last Trains: Dr Beeching and the Death of Rural England is a decent study of the run-up, execution and legacy of the Beeching cuts and gets into the broader politics of it all. Gerard Fiennes' autobiographical I Tried To Run A Railway is a very insightful and anecdote-packed look at a career from the 'glory days' of the railway in the 1920s to being chairman of BR's Eastern Region - a position he was sacked from for publishing the book. Illustrative of a lot of the problems and bungling going on at BR at the time, but always bear in mind that it is a personal account written on the defensive as a whistleblow. Despite the dry title, British Railways 1948-1973: A Business History by T.R. Gourvish is a brilliant history and analysis of why BR did what it did in that period, the economic, social and political challenges the system faced, how it tried to respond to them, what it got right, what it got wrong and why. The Train That Ran Away by Stewart Joy is apparently a mix of that book and Fiennes'; I haven't read it but have heard good things. The problem with British railway history books is finding the one that are actually about the railways as a whole over a period, instead of specialist titles describing in nauseating detail the variants of 4F Class steam locomotive based at Washwood Heath between 1950 and 1952 or someone's life's work on the history of the Great Piddlington & Snodsbury Light Railway.
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Oct 11, 2020 19:34
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I mean it probably should be advantageous for Labour, but given how Starmer's consistently failed to stand up to Boris, I'm not so sure it actually is
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Oct 11, 2020 19:41
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Be fair, he also would fail to stand up to any other PM.
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Oct 11, 2020 19:50
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Reminds me of when I first went to work at a certain rail infrastructure company: I'd only been there a couple of days and one of the track engineers said to me "When my wife calls, tell her I've gone on a cab ride." Not being au fait with rail-speak, when his wife rang, I told her: "he's gone off in a taxi somewhere" in the firm belief that I had conveyed the exact same information. Erm.... (ed: for the uninitiated, cab ride = travelling in the driver's cab on the train so you can eyeball the track ahead of you.) Jaeluni Asjil fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Oct 11, 2020 |
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Oct 11, 2020 20:08
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I haven't been tracking Brexit super closely, but have done some reading of articles and the like- and track this thread, but it seems like there is a distinct lack of terror of punching out to WTO rules in 12 weeks. Am I missing something? Seems like: Still major differences on trade/fishing/stupid poo poo NI still a mess? A phone call with Macron was pitched as a 'thing' - really? a phone call? Can someone tell me why this isn't a catastrophe?
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Oct 11, 2020 20:25
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Nostalgic Cashew posted:I haven't been tracking Brexit super closely, but have done some reading of articles and the like- and track this thread, but it seems like there is a distinct lack of terror of punching out to WTO rules in 12 weeks. Am I missing something? It is a catastrophe, but there's nothing any of us ITT can do about it except stock up our apocalypse supplies or move abroad if we have the wherewithall.
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Oct 11, 2020 20:30
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BalloonFish posted:Christian Wolmar's Fire & Steam: A New History of Railways in Britain is a good overall overlook from the earliest days to the present (well, 2009). Cracking list of recs. And yeah, I definitely was much more interested in the politics of the railways than the trainspotting side of things. Just happened to see a few minutes of a program about the cuts on some channel called CCXTV? And it reminded me that despite being very pro-nationalisation of the railways that I don't actually know much about BR. So yeah, this looks like a great starting point tah
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Oct 11, 2020 20:30
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Nostalgic Cashew posted:I haven't been tracking Brexit super closely, but have done some reading of articles and the like- and track this thread, but it seems like there is a distinct lack of terror of punching out to WTO rules in 12 weeks. Am I missing something? yeah were all going to die so what
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Oct 11, 2020 20:31
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Nostalgic Cashew posted:Can someone tell me why this isn't a catastrophe? It's been completely inevitable for 10 months, and even terror gets boring after a while.
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Oct 11, 2020 20:38
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Nostalgic Cashew posted:I haven't been tracking Brexit super closely, but have done some reading of articles and the like- and track this thread, but it seems like there is a distinct lack of terror of punching out to WTO rules in 12 weeks. Am I missing something? Our press has decided its not a story so it doesn't get discussed.
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Oct 11, 2020 20:40
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Nostalgic Cashew posted:Can someone tell me why this isn't a catastrophe? https://twitter.com/Papapishu/status/746803108949409793?s=20
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Oct 11, 2020 20:42
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Oh dear me posted:It's been completely inevitable for 10 months, and even terror gets boring after a while. Ah, ok. I must have missed that stage. Didn't mean to rub salt or anything. I guess the riots will occur in Feb-March?
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Oct 11, 2020 20:42
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Turns out you can just say anything and the mouthbreathing olds will believe it.
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Oct 11, 2020 20:44
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OwlFancier posted:the mouthbreathing olds Have, have they got covid? 
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Oct 11, 2020 20:45
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Nostalgic Cashew posted:I haven't been tracking Brexit super closely, but have done some reading of articles and the like- and track this thread, but it seems like there is a distinct lack of terror of punching out to WTO rules in 12 weeks. Am I missing something? A catastrophe is optimistic because it means things are changing even if by virtue of violence. The more likely result is slow grinding poverty and decay. The only way out would be the kind of unrest that unseats a government but the UK doesn't do those kinds of riots so I don't know what the gently caress anyone can do other than move out the country if you can.
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Oct 11, 2020 20:48
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Yeah, I'm expecting a winter of severe food disruption and minor civil unrest followed by a numb, resentful acceptance that our living standards are going to gradually but steadily decline further into dogshit. The Conservatives will remain 3 points ahead in the polls.
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Oct 11, 2020 20:53
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Nostalgic Cashew posted:Ah, ok. I must have missed that stage. Didn't mean to rub salt or anything. I guess the riots will occur in Feb-March? Oh you sweet summer child, still holding onto that optimism. The British public will get their faces pushed down into the mud and say "thank you" for it
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Oct 11, 2020 20:53
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the switch to selling it as "Australia-style" since September indicates that folks are regarding what used to be described as "crashing out" or "no deal" to be increasingly likely (as a step down from Canada, which has a comprehensive trade agreement with the EU)
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Oct 11, 2020 20:56
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Miniature British flags for beetroot faced men with golfball noses, concentration camps for everyone else.
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Oct 11, 2020 20:57
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ronya posted:the switch to selling it as "Australia-style" since September indicates that folks are regarding what used to be described as "crashing out" or "no deal" to be increasingly likely Yes, step one was subtly muddying the waters by referring to no deal as a "hard Brexit", implying that an actual hard Brexit (deal, but no SM/CU) was not so bad. Then picking a friendly country with no trade deal and renaming it after that to make it seem even more palatable (and by extension, the actual hard Brexit, or god forbid a Soft Brexit, to be Not What People Voted For). And the media who aren't fully on board with no-deal Brexit anyway have gone "seems legit, thank you Mr W Inspector", so we're heading for no deal, woopee. E: My prediction: something that could be described as a deal if you don't know what deals are and look at it without your glasses on will be struck at the last minute, the Brexiters will crow that it's all fine now, the Wallet Inspectees will accept it at face value, and 95% of the consequences of No Deal will happen without anyone who matters being able to point to the concept of No Deal, and will therefore find themselves unable to discuss it. Any negative consequences which can't be swept under the rug will be blamed on the pandemic. Bobstar fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Oct 11, 2020 |
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Oct 11, 2020 21:09
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the Irish American voting bloc is no longer quite the titan it once was, but it remains influential in the US Democratic Party; the leading candidate Joe Biden is known to bring up his Irish roots US diplomatic pressure to force the UK to 'come to terms' might be decisive in December we'll see
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Oct 11, 2020 21:10
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Jaeluni Asjil posted:It is a catastrophe, but there's nothing any of us ITT can do about it except stock up our apocalypse supplies or move abroad if we have the wherewithall. TBH the third option of swallowing all my stockpiled paracetamol in one sitting is beginning to look less like an extreme option and more like a sensible use of scarce resources. J/K I'm not going to OD on paracetamol. High school Biology teacher did an excellent job of scaring us away from that and wrist-slitting.
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Oct 11, 2020 21:18
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I'd genuinely like to read some decent analysis about what it is in British culture that makes us so utter dogshit cowardly as a people. I can't even begin to imagine how bad things would have to get before we'd see mass civil unrest, and even then you'd have a solid half of the population clutching their pearls at the scary rioters.
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Oct 11, 2020 21:25
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ThomasPaine posted:I'd genuinely like to read some decent analysis about what it is in British culture that makes us so utter dogshit cowardly as a people. I can't even begin to imagine how bad things would have to get before we'd see mass civil unrest, and even then you'd have a solid half of the population clutching their pearls at the scary rioters. Orwell wrote in Lion and Unicorn that the English cherish and valourise their most humilating defeats and failures because they're too put off by ego to accept that they're the most monstrous society to have ever lived
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Oct 11, 2020 21:29
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I mean he didn't go actualy that far because it's terrible analysis and I hate it, but once you correct his many, many misconceptions, like that the english couldnt ever go fash because they're too embarassed to goosestep, that's what you're left with
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Oct 11, 2020 21:34
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ThomasPaine posted:I'd genuinely like to read some decent analysis about what it is in British culture that makes us so utter dogshit cowardly as a people. I can't even begin to imagine how bad things would have to get before we'd see mass civil unrest, and even then you'd have a solid half of the population clutching their pearls at the scary rioters. The quick answer is, I suspect, the class system and its infinite subtle gradations. There's never really been a significant proportion of the country with nothing to lose by kicking too hard against the established order, because you can say "Yeah I'm being hosed over but at least I'm better off than that lot in Acacia Avenue". Like the last big riots in 2011 - the spark was Mark Duggan but the kindling, along with the usual racial and economic factors, was stacked extra-high by the cuts to youth services, benefits in general, and the education and training grants in particular. Suddenly thousands of already pissed off young people have suddenly had the one route out of their situation ripped away from them, and at that point didn't really feel like they had anything left to lose and everything (or at least a new telly and some nice trainers) to gain.
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Oct 11, 2020 21:37
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ThomasPaine posted:I'd genuinely like to read some decent analysis about what it is in British culture that makes us so utter dogshit cowardly as a people. I can't even begin to imagine how bad things would have to get before we'd see mass civil unrest, and even then you'd have a solid half of the population clutching their pearls at the scary rioters. one could point to the relatively high strength of British civil society in a Tocquevillean sense undermining the attractiveness of violence - this being e.g. illustrated in Britain's relatively slow embrace of universal suffrage compared to France, and conversely greater acceptance of plural associations (albeit in an imperial, hierarchical sense) this is more of a grand-sweep thesis though
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Oct 11, 2020 21:37
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Spangly A posted:I mean he didn't go actualy that far because it's terrible analysis and I hate it, but once you correct his many, many misconceptions, like that the english couldnt ever go fash because they're too embarassed to goosestep, that's what you're left with British people do generally find any stridently-voiced political opinion off-putting - the genius of the Right has always been their ability to disguise their deeply political ideas as "just common sense" and then caricaturing anyone thinking that maybe we shouldn't be using the poor as a cheap source of fuel as shrill political hacks.
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Oct 11, 2020 21:39
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Finally someone used this meme template properly https://twitter.com/agirlcalledlina/status/1315312988144963589
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Oct 11, 2020 21:43
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goddamnedtwisto posted:British people do generally find any stridently-voiced political opinion off-putting - the genius of the Right has always been their ability to disguise their deeply political ideas as "just common sense" and then caricaturing anyone thinking that maybe we shouldn't be using the poor as a cheap source of fuel as shrill political hacks. I can believe this actually. A few years back I started disguising my communism as christianity around older family members and suddenly everyone started engaging with it. Not sure I could pull off common sense jesus as well, but maybe it's worth a shot
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Oct 11, 2020 21:48
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A lot of people are not scared of a catastrophe as they just don't think it will affect them. Remember a lot are still in the mindset from the vote itself. Where farmers were going 'I voted leave because are soverignty' and are now going 'what do you mean my incoming money is halved!' Where city people were going 'I voted leave as we need to spend are money on us' and are now going 'what do you mean the X millions of EU funding we got will stop!' And still think the Tory gov has some one weird trick the EU hates to pull the missing money out of their rear end to replace it with in 2021. WE GOT A TRADE DEAL WITH MONGOLIA! The media isn't telling them anything, you have Gove outright lying recently about all the benefits of leaving the EU to a committee meeting ffs. Brexit won't be an immediate collapse. Prices will increase on things, there will be a truck clusterfuck at Kent and other ports for a few weeks, but this will be overshadowed the first few months by the 'SEE WE ARE FREE NOW! CLAP FOR BORIS AT 8PM' and the media will happily parrot and repeat it. While reporting how supplies of whatever is low or delayed in some parts on page 35 just below the man bites dog articles. Covid will be the excuse used for everything bad in the economy for the next decade, not the destroying of trade and internal social help structures. And Tories will perpetually be 3 points ahead. happyhippy fucked around with this message at 21:56 on Oct 11, 2020 |
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Oct 11, 2020 21:49
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