Bijou Drains
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Apology accepted
And don’t worry, you don’t have a monopoly on foolishness, just ask my family.
However, as a penance you will need to watch the entire World Cup final (icluding penalties) in the noisiest pub in your locality
😉” Hopefully a socialist society will banish your view of culture to the historical footnotes.”
So much for classical literature, love of books etc., then, when they are banished to the historical footnotes.
Another example of your failings in basic comprehension. I did not say that the culture would be banished, read it again properly. “your VIEW of culture to the historical footnotes”
3/10 must try harder!
TM “The moment men try to open conversation with football talk, that’s my cue to buzz off.” As this Forum Topic was titled “The World Cup” and is clearly a discussion about football, why did you not take the cue and *^@?ed off. Is it that you could resist the temptation to attempt to boost your sense of self importance by demonstrating to all just how refined and discerning you are by explaining in detail how boorish and lumpen anyone who has other views.
You even post a video on a party website stating that you have identified me (a fellow comrade) and that I am as Peter Cook describes “A convicted football hooligan” you also by posting that imply that my long standing interest in football is based on a desire to commit assaults on other football fans, even though, as far as I know you have not met me, you know very little about me and my life. Some could actually argue that your post was possibly libelous.
That crude characterisation is not funny, it exposes you for what you are.
TM – So what you are saying is that any body who is interested in cultural activities that are not in line with the cultural mandate set by your cultural overlords can be defined as being part of the lumpenproletariat? What you appear to be saying is that art produced by the people I quoted (Sid Chaplin, Jack Common, Alan Silitoe, Barry Hines, Jack Hilton, Alistair Gray, Douglas Stewart, Tommy Armstrong, Joe Wilson and Leonard Barras) can be comfortably ignored because they fit into your definition of the lumpenproletariat. Your just making yourself looking even more foolish and elitist (which to be fair is pretty difficult thing to do).
I would also suggest that you should go back to the school you were educated in and see if you can get some of the money back, it appears that you are unable to undertake a basic comprehension exercise. I have at no point did I say “What makes you think there is no genuine love for classical music, classical literature and art, but that it is all bogus and feigned“. Where in your elitist fever dream did I say that?
What I was saying is that by elevating the cultural activities of the bourgeoisie to the level of fetishism whilst simultaneously denigrating cultural activities that are enjoyed and developed outside of that cultural elite, by castigating those who enjoy things that are not within your boot licking agenda, you are complicit in the domination of the master class.
To be fair, Sir Tom, I was going to leave your comment about music teachers as final note, but, perhaps I should add a little bit more.
I wasn’t going to mention that the fact that your comment that childhood experiences of music were similar to your comments about your experiences regarding football and sport. It made me think, if you were alienated from sport as a result of your early experiences, so why not music?
Is it because you only wish to ape the standards of those who you ostensibly despise, the ruling class? You seem to never resist the chance to demonstrate your class obsequiousness when cultural matters are raised. Sport is for the proles, popular drama is mindless, anything less than bowing and scraping of the gods of the ruling classes’ cultural icons is to be admonished. You are nothing but a lick spittle to the culture of the ruling class.
Marx wrote that “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas.” Karl Marx, The German Ideology. You seem to be the most excellent example of this concept. You are nothing more than a lick spittle to the dominant ideas, culture and concepts of the ruling class.
Anna Freud wrote in The Ego and the Mechanisms of the defence mechanism, identification of the oppressor, whereby a person facing an external threat, such as disapproval or criticism from an authority figure (or ruling class culture), identifies with the source of the threat, either by appropriating the aggression or else by adopting other attributes of the threatening figure.
The culture of the ruling classes has entered the soul of your being, man; you cannot look beyond the cultural prison that your public school encased you. You talk about how hard it was, but in the same breath any culture which is not within your narrow ruling class curriculum is to be despised and mocked.Steve Biko made the point that if the culture of black people in South Africa during Apartheid was continually denigrated and reduced to ridicule it would become powerless. Only the culture of the ruling white minority could be lauded and embraced. Challenging the cultural assumptions of a ruling class becomes a part of revolutionary thinking. Glorying in the culture of the ruling class like you do leaves workers in the thrall of the false cultural gods of the Capitalist Class
Sadly, you and people like you, whilst ostensibly pretending to be revolutionaries are really nothing more than cultural cheerleaders for the ruling class. If a person doesn’t follow the cultural signage that the ruling class sets out, they are a barbarian, if they think of books as nothing but a physical entity to assist the development of ideas, they are a neanderthal, if they like football they are a hooligan, if they speak in dialect, they are a fool.
Cultural expressions which do not follow the formulae set by the ruling class are vulgar and uneducated, not worthy of consideration. Your Socialism is a paper tiger to the ruling class.
Instead of reading and grovelling to the tomes set by your public-school persecutors you might attempt to read from a more diverse canon, not blessed and approved by the bourgeoisie. Get of your knees and stop bowing before your oppressor.
Have a read through the work of Sid Chaplin, Jack Common (Orwell wished said he could write like Jack Common), Alan Silitoe, Barry Hines, Jack Hilton, Alistair Gray and recently the work of Douglas Stewart. Listen to the anarchic musical legacy that people like Tommy Armstrong “The Pitman Poet” or Joe Wilson have left. You might even try the incredible humour of Leonard Barras. Look at the history of The Rugby Football League where working people took on the might of the sporting establishment and created their own sport in defiance of the rules of the “sporting gentlemen” and literally beat them at their own game.Get off your cultural knees and your mental development might become broad enough to appreciate that the beauty of a Cruyff Turn, is in its own terms as beautiful and as significant as a ballet move, that the Archie Gemmill’s run was a moment of sheer genius, a game of cribbage can be as complex and fiendish as a hand of bridge.
Hopefully a socialist society will banish your view of culture to the historical footnotes
You may feel a momentary feeling of superiority when you attempt to stylise football fans as hooligans, you may even develop a transient feeling of self worth when you deride the culture of those who don’t follow the lead of the ruling elite, but sadly your words and comments (such as the posting you placed above) show that you are nothing but a sad little snob, acting like a cultural puppy, licking the boots of the elite that whipped you.
You haven’t even got the wit to make up your own jokes, you have to rely on cutting and pasting videos of other people. To me your lack of creativity demonstrates that your surrender to the master class is complete, you haven’t got an original thought in your head.
Sir Tom
I was tortured at school when the teachers at the school full of East end of Newcastle nutters I was part of decided that we would all benefit from them teaching us classical music and starting an orchestra.
As Congreve said, they thought “Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast,”. Well it fecking didn’t.
It just gave the 10% psychopaths amongst the teachers and pupils that were part of the school additional means to beat the living crap out of us.
The teachers had the excuse to beat us cos we didn’t have a note in our bodies.
The school psychos beat us up if you showed any interest in playing instruments, as it ended up with those who played becaming complicit in the torture of the rest of the school, as everyone was forced to attend one of the appalling school concerts that followed.
To be fair they had a point.
That doesn’t mean that I would decry classical music.
There are lots of things I find boring, but that’s up to them. I don’t go off pontificating about what they do and try to claim the moral high ground because I don’t enjoy their enthusiasm.
Some people enjoy growing prize vegetables, some people enjoy musical theatre (😱), some people enjoy football and some people even enjoy wearing wearing strange clothes and hitting small balls around golf courses.
Please don’t try and pin your particular dislikes on to the flag of revolutionary socialism, it does socialism a great disservice.
I hope a Socialist Society would be part of a great flowering of human interest and creativity, that may be in the arts, in science, in literature and even in sport. Any attempt to stifle is in my mind anti socialist
Personally think it would be a huge mistake.
It would be seen for what it is as being opportunistic, which is what it would be.
We need to show a bit more integrity than that.
Also it would possibly be seen as an attempt to throw a life belt to Farage when he’s managed to urinate on his French fries in such a spectacular way.
We, in my opinion, should steer well clear and let the good ship Reform sink into a mire of their own creation
The anti Farage vote seems to be centering around Count Bin face, which has now got the slogan “Bin c*nt face”
He’s moved up in the betting to 4/1 on Paddy Power
I’ll have the booze, no bother. The flag will be the flag of which ever team England are playing
Break a leg, luvvie
Looks like the only opponent might be Count Bin Face.
Given that Farage only got 46% at the last election and that the bookies have Bin Face at 20-1, is the smart money amongst the anti reform vote in Clacton start to pile money on Bin Face, then vote for him giving both Farage and Ladbrokes with egg on his face?
What a well argued, in depth and interesting response, Sir Tom. You’ve surpassed even your high standards.
Don’t worry, just another two weeks and you’ll be able to watch Corrie to your heart’s content
“ For sport to function as entertainment, athletes must compete for a trophy, which is ultimately a form of wealth. That requirement isn’t compatible with a society based on free access”
I’ve got to be honest Moo, I think what you’ve written is complete nonsense .
The idea that a system of common ownership of the means of production isn’t compatible with the awarding of trophies or mementos is, in my view, ridiculous.
The abolition of private property does not mean the abolition of private property. Socialism wouldn’t entail common ownership of my vinyl collection. Gangs of Socialist zealots will not be charged with prising Tom More’s lived collection of books from his fingers. In the same way they wouldn’t go around the club houses of the local bowls or bridge club ransacking their trophy room and placing them into protective custody lest easily influenced children would be enticed into an illicit competitive game of ludo.
Competitiveness is part of the rich tapestry of human behaviour. That the philosophers of capitalism have raised it to a level of fetishisation does not mean that in a future society people will not enjoy being competitive.
I have no doubt that in a socialist society little lads will still try to see who can piddle highest up the wall, people will still want to be the best chess player, grow the biggest marrows, run the fastest, jump the highest, etc. etc. I for one will still endeavour to win board games.
I also have no doubt that spectator sport will continue to be a big part of our cultural experience. Do you think that people won’t stand astounded at the sporting prowess of others? Or will it be that be huge shutterings put up to watch others compete?
I loved every moment of playing football, are people like me who can’t take part anymore in sport due to age or infirmity to be denied the joy of others doing what I used to enjoy (but doing it much better than I used to)?
I’m really surprised by declared socialists who are so intolerant of and judgemental about others people’s ways of living. As well as the economic freedoms that a socialist society offers surely social and cultural freedom comes along hand in hand.
It reminds me of a friend of mine who was a tattoo artist. He used to say the only difference between people who have tattoos and people who don’t have tattoos, is that most of the people who have tattoos don’t care that other people don’t have tattoos.
So to summarise, Sir Tom. Since 1998 (a period of 28 years) you and or your family have been inconvenienced on three occasions. You anticipate that this evening you will be further inconvenienced by the fact that instead of having 73 free to air channels on TV you will only have the choice of 72 and you might have to wait a little longer for the next episode of Coronation Street.
What about all of the poor buggers that have to put up with you and your Am Dram buddies taking over the pub doing all that pseudo intellectual stuff and pretending that they’re windswept and interesting. Have you ever had a thought about how much your bunch of wannabe luvvies inflict on the good people of your local pub?
It’s not all about you mate.
Yes you can. Loads of non World Cup content on TV, radio, etc. I’m a football fan, who isn’t arsed about international football. I’ve managed to avoid it pretty well, then you can.
I think Shakespeare is massively overrated, but I don’t mind others pretending that they enjoy it, watching Shakespearean plays, laughing at the very weak jokes from his comedies as if they’ve never heard the gag before and kidding themselves that understanding his work makes them somehow intellectually superior. If it gives them joy, so be it.
I can avoid it if I choose to, just like you can avoid the World Cup.
Live and let live, Bonny lad.
To see sport only within the capitalistic context is, in my mind, a mistake. The vast majority of sporting events and sporting activities take place in a much more communalistic and cooperative context. To take example there are 92 professional league teams in the football league system. if you say that of those 92, maybe 30 on average are being paid, that gives 2,762 players. In terms of the 92 teams, there are more that that many teams running within the small metropolitan district I live than that 92.
there are an estimated 15.7 million people who play football regularly in England. For more structured, club-based environments, participation is also substantial. Nationally, there are over 40,000 community clubs and more than 100,000 registered teams across the country.
I played adult football regularly from the age of 18 to the age of 52. Some of the lads I played with are still playing at the age of 65.
The majority of those teams, even those who are considered semi professional or in the higher leagues where players get what is termed “boot money” are generally run and organised by non paid volunteers. The spirit of self help, mutuality and community run through the vast majority of footballing activities.
I’ve found very few footballers who object to people not liking football. I have however found many people who don’t like football who whinge about people who like football. If you don’t like it you are not forced to watch it. I always thought that socialism involved the concept of free expression.
It is a similar story across many sports. Lots and lots of kids have been able to access sport as an alternative to antisocial behaviour, criminality and other difficulties.
In terms of how a future socialist society, who really knows? I would like took think that any future sporting organisation might following a model to the one used by the Gaelic Athletic Association’s (GAA’s) model.
If you want to play Gaelic Football or Hurling, you generally join your local GAA team. The local teams are generally organised geographically so more or less by townland or local parish. They compete on a county wide basis. The wining county teams then complete on a provincial basis, so the four provinces (Ulster, Munster, Leinster and Connacht) have an inter county championship. The Provincial champions then compete to be the All Ireland Club champions.
It is all done on an amateur basis. At the next level the best players from each county are selected to play for the county and they then compete at an inter provincial basis and they can become the provincial champions. there is are All Ireland inter county competitions for both Hurling and Gaelic Football (the Liam McCarthy Trophy and the Sam Maguire trophy), which is really the pinnacle of the sport.
I’m more of a Gaelic Football fan, but I’ve got to say watching top level hurling is incredible. The skill the tactical awareness, the team play, is terrific. The All Ireland Semi finals which were held over the weekend at Croke park was a magnificent spectacle. Fortunately the BBC have started showing Gaelic games on their iplayer system. The final is in a fortnight. If you enjoy sports, I would recommend watching it. (it’s all amateur)
