Bijou Drains
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“I don’t mean to be mean to Geordies, but until they develop thumbs and learn human speech it’s just too easy.
Anyway, this video is faintly terrifying:
basically, Toon fans defending taking Saudi money with weak tu quouque arguments against the British state (which are fair enough), but it shows how people can hold some fairly hypocritical POVs when it suits their ideational interests, in this case as footie fans.”A late reply because I was busy developing thumbs and then learning the secret of fire.
Having watched the video I found it a little surprising that the original poster should identify the three people in the video as “Geordies”. The last two speakers did not have a Geordie accents (as any fule kno). The second had a Middle Eastern/Asian accent, the third speaker clearly had a County Durham accent. (Geordies don’t drop their aitches and his pronounciation of food banks as “fewd banks, is a give away as to his linguistic origin).
So, on the basis of one speaker on a dodgy twitter video YMS can Comfortably deride the whole population of Tyneside, no doubt he thinks that all Scousers are thieves, all Welshmen are sheep shaggers (when they are not engaged in choirs), all Glaswegians are violent drunken psycopaths and all Aberdonians are tight fisted.
As to the language issue, we have been able to speak for quite some time. The broad dialectical range known generally as Northumbrian (including Geordie, North Northumbrian, Mackem and Pitmatic) is considered by some to be a separate language. For instance, The Northumbrian Language Society (NLS), founded in 1983 to research, preserve and promote the Northumbrian language variety, considers it divergent enough to be not a dialect of Modern Standard English but, rather, a related but separate Anglic language of its own, since it is largely not comprehensible by standard English speakers. Northumbrian has perhaps an even closer relationship with Modern Scots, and both the NLS regard as distinct languages derived from Old English but close relatives.
Much of the dialect used is much closer to Old English than Standard English spoken in the South, for instance the use “yee” instead of you, “Watter” instead of water, “Hyem” instead of home, “hoose” instead of house, “Toon” instead of town and “Larn” instead of learn or teach. Many other words are close to Scandinavian usage, for example “gan” instead of go and “bairn” for child (Barn in Swedish, Norwegian and Danish). Vowels sounds and use of dipthongs in this dialect are also closer to Old English, whereas Southern and Midland English use of vowels and dipthongs has been changed through the Norman influence (byuts for boots, beor for beer, etc).
It is fair to say, in my opinion, that actually everyone South of Middlesbrough is actually speaking in French.
In fairness though, I can only assume that YMS was attempting to develop a little “banter”, (South Africans are well know for their humour) well YMS, “hadaway n’ poss ya dutt, y’geet glake”.
Interestingly YMS also implies in his posting that Newcastle fans should protest at the presence of the Saudi regime at Newcastle, perhaps he feels that Newcastle fans should attempt to reform part of the Capitalist System and that even more interestingly he perhaps thinks that these kinds of reforms would be worthwhile.
With regard to the response of Newcastle fans to the take over (by the way not all Geordies are Toon fans and not all Toon fans are Geordies, about 50% of those who live on the South Bank of the Tyne from roughly Jarrow towards South Shields follow the Great Unwashed and attend the Stad du Merde and in some of the mining villages whole populations were moved lock stock and barrel from one mining town to another so following family loyalty there are pockets of Mackems in some of the Northumberland ex mining towns and pockets of Newcastle fans in parts of deepest Durham), the view regarding the Saudi takeover has been variable. Some have protested about the takeover others have misgivings but are pleased to get rid of Mike Ashley, others have welcomed it whole heartedly.
One recurrent theme for lots of fans, however, has been the apparent hyprocracy of media reporting. No call for boycott of Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium or their sportswashing sponsership of the authoritarian Rwandan regime, no mention of the fact that Man United were sponsored for years by Aeroflot (prop V Putin), that millions of pounds of sponsorship and prize money was given to Champions League teams by Gazprom (see above), that very little mention was made of Man City’s takeover by Thakswin Shinawatra (responsible for the death of 2,500 people during his “war on drugs”), that the level of discussion about the Man City takeover by the UAE was far more muted than that of the Newcastle takeover. Added to that there is a response that other investors from the UK, USA and China, tainted by human rights abuses, are similarly linked to football clubs without any great out cry.
Of particular interest to those of a Black and White persuasion is the noise made over in Wearside about sports washing and blood money. Funnily enough I didn’t see any outcry from Wearyside when Charlie Methven (who made his money in the democratic hot spot of Bahrain) joined the board, no they actually wanted to get him out because he called Sunderland fans who were watching (and paying for) Beout tv (funded by the Saudi Government) parasites on pirate, when he spoke out about this on TV.
Presumably it was morally acceptable for Blunderland fans to watch and pay happily for what one of their fans on TV at the time called “Taliban Telly”, but throw their hand up about Saudi involvement now.
I might also mention Antonio Simon Vumbaca (one of the current non executive directors of SAFC), who made his dosh providing legal support to Formula 1, which has held Grand Prix in such wonderfully liberal and humane countries such as Russia, Bahrain, Azerbaijan, Qatar and low and behold Saudi Arabia and who was happy to be retained by the Bahrainis from 2010 onwards
Interestingly SAFC are currently owned by Kyril Louis-Dreyfus of the Louis Deyfrus Group of families which has a long history of arms dealing, international commodity brokerage in oil (wonder where all of that oil came, could it be Saudi Arabia?) or their presence in Argentina during regime of Jorge Rafael Videla, president of Argentina during the Dirty War where 30,000 people who were disappeared.
Many also point out that those who throw their hands up at the fact that the Saudis have bought Newcastle United but did not seem to mind that British companies were profitting from the sale of murderous weapons and torture equipment to the same Saudis.
From my own point of view, as part of the capitalist system Football is corrupt root and branch. Get rid of the Saudis and another bunch of corrupt repugnant capitalists will take over. Back in the day there were directors of Newcastle United who owned collieries and mines, how many thousands died in the North East to keep the mine owners of the district happy. How many workers had their surplus value legally stolen to keep Mike Ashley, John Hall, Freddie Shepherd, et al in comfort? If we follow practically any kind of sport, the corrupting tentacles of capitalism will be there.
I like to think that Bobby Robson was right when he wrote:
“What is a club in any case? Not the buildings or the directors or the people who are paid to represent it. It’s not the television contracts, get-out clauses, marketing departments or executive boxes. It’s the noise, the passion, the feeling of belonging, the pride in your city. It’s a small boy clambering up stadium steps for the very first time, gripping his father’s hand, gawping at that hallowed stretch of turf beneath him and, without being able to do a thing about it, falling in love.”― Bobby Robson, Newcastle: My Kind of Toon
I made my first walk up those stairs holding my Dad’s hand in 1967. My little girl clambered up those steps for the first time holding my hand 33 years ago, her 5 year old son did his first clamber up the steps with us both last month. I hope that if he has a little boy or girl that he makes the same journey, preferably at a time when there is a sane social system that doesn’t manipulate, abuse and distort sporting endeavour to meet the interests of the profit system, the greed of the few and the exapansion of Capital. How’s that suit you for Geordie Logic YMS?
“the obligation to resist such barbarism is reinforced.”
Is that the barbarism of the Russians or the Barbarism of the Ukrainians, is it the Nazi barbarism or the barbarism of Dresden, Hiroshima and the Bengal famine.
I think that this video shows quite eloquently how poor Hossenfelder’s use of comparative logic. She has in one part explained that 1g of used nuclear waste would kill you within 2 weeks if ingested and that there is 400,000 metric tons of it. She then goes on to explain that industry produces 400 million tons of “High Level Hazardous Waste”.
The implication is that the two things are comparable, if she doesn’t they are comparable then why is she making the comparison? However using the same information she has provided, they are not comparable. Is she saying that High Level Industrial Waste is equally lethal to spent nuclear waste?
She is mixing her comparators, quantity and quality.
I don’t agree or disagree with the argument she is making regarding nuclear power, what I am saying is that she makes the argument very poorly.
I often wonder why people have started to conflate a skill area or knowledge area in one area with skill, knowledge or even political insight in other areas.
Just because you write great music doesn’t make you insightful in other areas, or because you were or are a talented footballer or even astrophysicist it does not mean that you have any great knowledge about other areas or particularly that your political opinion really matters.
This obsession with the views and thoughts of high profile people seems to me to be a fairly recent phenomenon. We are completely swamped with the media crying out that footballers/actors/musicians, etc are role models. Even more worrying is the way that some people are willing to treat experts or skilled people as “mentors” and hang on every word they way and treat them as demi-gods.
As a young person my musical hero was Keith Moon, my favourite actor was Jack Nicholson and my football hero was Wyn Davies (who was more than happy to stick the brow on an opposing Centre Half). I didn’t use them as a lifestyle guru, if I had I would probably be six feet under.
Even at this callow age I could separate their skills set and talent from them as an individual. None of them were role models to me; I just liked some of the things that they did.
It turns out that Picasso was a bit of an arsehole (a very big one actually), it might be (debate rages about it) that Wagner was a racist, Van Morrison has a history of wacky belief systems and Alan Titchmarsh is a royalist. It doesn’t mean that Alan Titchmarsh’s tips on early flowering climbing roses are null and void, or that I would consider his views on the causes of inflation to be of any import.
A quick example that demonstrates the kind of bollocks Sabine Hossenfelder comes up with, when she talks about economics comes from her posting below.
http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/05/capitalism-is-good-for-you.html
In this posting she starts by stating:
“Most economists I know started out as physicists. Being a physicist myself of course means that the sample is biased, but still it serves to demonstrate the closeness of the two subjects.”The fact that she knows some economists who started out as physicists doesn’t in any way “demonstrate the closeness of the two subjects”. This is the level of debate she is reduced to.
That anyone would consider her to be a mentor in any area other than her specialist area, is risible.
And just like Keir Starmer, Dan “The Plan” Smith was an ex Trot.
It appears to be, unsurprisingly, that Trotskyism is a good grounding for those who wish to manipulate, control, intimidate and hoodwink their fellow party members and the general public.
If you have a son or daughter that has ambitions to join the higher ranks in politics and you can’t afford to send them off to Eton, you can always enrol them in the local “rent a spart” branch. Given a fair wind and sharp elbows they’ll end up at least a Junior Minister.
I do agree this is adding to the pile of shite posts, however I really must correct Paula when she says – “for example would he address me, the male bus driver, the man fixing his roof, his manly plumber or builder, any party member including for example Cde Buick, the policeman or fireman, the surgeon, the doctor, the headteacher and so on as “pet”. Of course not.”
Of course I would, and not just me
See and also not gender specific
I call lots of “manly blokes” hinny or pet, if not that then I would say marra (For cde Buick it would probably be marra). Only exception from your list would be a male police officer, who I really enjoy calling either son or sonny, that is where I do genuinely try to be patronising and belittling, it winds them up like a cheap watch and they can’t say a thing to an auld git like me.
In West Yorkshire, where I work often, it’s quite common for men to call each other love, and when I worked in Hampshire some of the older guys would often call me either “flower” or “my lover”.
Regarding my unconscious mind, I prefer to leave that to Sigmund
As for stopping digging when you’re in a hole, being from at least 5 generations of miners (including my great grandmother!), I’m probably genetically predisposed to keep on digging!
Anyway, isn’t telling me I can’t express myself in my native language a little bit racist? 😉
“I knew immediately what was meant by your use of the word “pet”, as I do by the geordie term “hinny”, you sexist shit.
You see, my knowledge of linguistics knows no bounds 🙂”
Except the terms Pet and Hinny are non gender specific, Geordie blokes address other blokes using both terms. My mother regularly called me pet and hinny, my brother always the phone to me saying “y’alreet hinny?”
Many female partners regularly address their partners using “pet” or hinny”
As the song goes
“I’d bless the ground for the welcome sound of mee mutha saying hinny Howay”Seems like your linguistic skills actually do have bounds
“First, I’m not your pet and never going to be.”
As you like correct understanding of language, pet is not used in this context as meaning an animal companion, it is a shortening of the word petal. Don’t worry though, Hinny, lots of people make the same mistake.
Almamater
I think this journalist has done us a favor because the concept of a moneyless society is widely discussed in the internet, and also the real concept of socialism can be widely explained, and workers are browsing on our website
Completely agreed
Lizzie – “Look, there’s no way people are going to choose a society that has not been tried and tested, and which to them appears to be a prescription for cloud cuckoo land.”
Howay pet, you keep telling us your an astrophysicist, (a wee bit needy?). All innovation and change requires us to look at options and alternatives. Travel to the moon wasn’t tried and tested up to the point that they did it and no future societal development has been tried or tested. That’s the way it works.
The change from Classical Slavery to Feudalism was a move from a tried and tested into a new type of society.
Another ecample, did the populace of France think to themselves, “Oh no, a despotic monarchy and the divine right of the monarch is a tried and tested system let’s stay with Louis XVI” Did they bollocks, they (eventually) cut his head of.
I do though agree with the view that we need to spend much more of our efforts showing that Socialism is a “Practical Alternative” to quote Pieter Lawrence (again), and to also look at the practical ways in which we could bring about and operate a socialist society.
I, personally, think that it is wrong to ignore the way that Sinn Fein brought about their “Irish Revolution”. Although it was a capitalist change, they set up the “shadow” administrative organisations before the Treaty was signed.
We need to show in a practical way how a system of common ownership (subject democratic control) could be set up. Instead of saying to people, “You will sort all of this shit out” we need to say “we have well researched, practical and effective ways of sorting all of this shit out, but we need your input to develop this”
“I wonder whether in the end they will agree on a single Trotskyite candidate.”
Have you been on the Buckfast wine, ALB?
That would need Trotskyists to come together in agreement!
If they did though, they could ride into town on a unicorn and get mermaids to swim up the Clyde and do a bit of syncronised swimming in Strathclyde Loch.
As they used to say, one Trot equals a tendency, two Trots equals a party, three Trots equals a split.
I know Cde Cox stated that there is no desire to sell up at Clapham High Street. I personally think we should sell up and buy something that is more suited to our needs and doesn’t require the refurbishment that the current HO needs.
A quick look on the net and I came up with this option, which would leave us £300,000 to the good, if the valuation for Clpaham High Street is correct, and not taking into account the fact that we might be able to get it a bit cheaper:
https://www.loopnet.co.uk/Listing/399-401-High-St-London/27999763/
I also noticed that there is a link in the article with the word campaigns, which goes to the party website. What’s not to like!
“This factual account isn’t showing the party in a good light. It’s difficult to get across the message that we want a society without money, when we have assets of £2.6 million and only 157 voters. I don’t think it’s our wealth that’s the problem, it’s our lack of popular support when compared with our wealth. Have we become a party that gets rich achieving nothing?”
That’s the beauty of the Socialist Party, there is no leader to tell you what to do and what not to do. So if any member feels that we are not carrying out enough activity, the solution is quite simple, go off and carry out the kind of activity you think is lacking. If it needs more than one person encourage other members to assist you. That’s really the essence of the socialist case.
I don’t think it is difficult to get the across the message that we want a society without money, when we have assets of any amount. It woudl be a hell of a lot harder to get the message across without any assets. It also shows that as socialists, even within the constricts of capitalism we can democratically manage our resources effectively and appropriately.
As to how it looks, a report ont eh BBC will hit thousands of people, who knows, a few might check out our website, one or two might even look in on this forum. No publicity is bad publicity, as they say.
