tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26685258324876992012024-03-18T21:01:36.194-07:00Falling In PublicWriting trips.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger189125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668525832487699201.post-49242904657231639372021-09-02T02:39:00.001-07:002021-09-10T04:51:48.043-07:00Why did Americans start ingesting horse paste?<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9YyD4M-eRhfGTphTNU1gK0sh1M9HG5a_oFaLCNJCfejl8s9igDxsFAoBeiUQbyYI23RYgrEgCo8KxJe3kVXrt8NMLdGNvcPKZMyG__KV5-eBVd3jNB0yUvMIO2EoeCHIpqbCJXmQR0ahQ/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="1086" data-original-width="1080" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9YyD4M-eRhfGTphTNU1gK0sh1M9HG5a_oFaLCNJCfejl8s9igDxsFAoBeiUQbyYI23RYgrEgCo8KxJe3kVXrt8NMLdGNvcPKZMyG__KV5-eBVd3jNB0yUvMIO2EoeCHIpqbCJXmQR0ahQ/w398-h400/Screenshot_2021-09-01-16-03-48-46_cbf47468f7ecfbd8ebcc46bf9cc626da.jpg" width="398" /></a></div><p></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">In recent weeks, social media has been doing what it does best – laughing at idiots. The idiots <i>du jour</i> are right-wing anti-vax folk, and mocking them has become a <i>cause celebre</i> for everyone else. But what led to a subsection of the American right to turn to horse paste as a Covid medicine?</h3><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDNNskbbUg8WG2p38GilgzRrRWEdJbHEb7lA77mOdjdOp_nTtIlvJDUf3lPidoj3b097S7VVIxtspbVIhogmeyb0n7CTMxmZhjGGO-GGiZLlRyMcV1JvWPF9eXcNwEU39TwhOv_rzR5wqY/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="410" data-original-width="1080" height="121" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDNNskbbUg8WG2p38GilgzRrRWEdJbHEb7lA77mOdjdOp_nTtIlvJDUf3lPidoj3b097S7VVIxtspbVIhogmeyb0n7CTMxmZhjGGO-GGiZLlRyMcV1JvWPF9eXcNwEU39TwhOv_rzR5wqY/" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The story really is one for our age, a mixture of institutional distrust and alternative media groupthink. Its nexus is where the evolutionary need to keep safe intersects with the growing conspiracy industry. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Of course, the American right wing has been on an increasingly intense diet of conspiracy theories, starting long before Donald Trump came along and started spoon feeding this hungry crowd. In many ways they were primed for a pandemic and all its opportunities to spread nonsense. We’ve had everything from masks inhibiting oxygen intake, to Bill Gates microchips, to 5g causing Covid.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">But the horse paste one caught my eye, not only because it’s so ridiculous, but because of the way people reacted – in a completely understandable and really unhelpful way.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Let’s break down the story a little. The reason people are taking horse medicine is because of the what’s in it – ivermectin. Ivermectin has been touted by some as a Covid-19 wonder drug. The most high profile of these devotees is probably Bret Weinstein, who with his wife rose hosts the DarkHorse podcast. Weinstein, an evolutionary biologist, is one a member of the so-called intellectual dark web, a group of smart people who, in their words, think outside the mainstream box, and are prepared to ask questions that the mainstream deems unconscionable. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Along with people like physician Dr. Pierre Kory MD, self-designated inventor of mNRA vaccines Robert W. Malone MD, and millionaire entrepreneur Steve Kirsch, they have come out with some quite remarkable claims. These include the claim that ivermectin can drive Covid to extinction, is incredibly effective at stopping you get Covid, and works really well as a treatment if you’ve already got it. They back up their claims with anecdotal evidence, and also with reference to complex trials which most of us don’t understand. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” is their message, and ivermectin is the gift that keeps giving.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">These claims are only half of their narrative. The other half is just as important: the big pharma conspiracy to hide the truth about ivermectin, because ivermectin is an old drug which doesn’t generate profits. Big pharma wants you to take their expensive drugs, of course, and the regulators and the mainstream media and big tech are all in on it too.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Not only to they praise ivermectin, but they simultaneously cast doubt on the vaccines. They’ve made misleading claims about how vaccine spike proteins effect ovaries, and that having a more highly vaccinated population increases the chance of creating new Covid variants. So while undermining trust on a brand new vaccine, they also present a perfectly safe alternative. That’s got to be appealing for anyone who is dubious about injecting something new and scary into their arms.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">To be clear about ivermectin. It is an anti-parasitic drug developed by Merck in 1975<b> </b>and has been taken by billions of people. It’s not dangerous for humans, unlike Trump’s medical suggestion – bleach. But the WHO, the CDC and the FDA don’t just go around endorsing medicines for illnesses just because we know they are safe, otherwise we’d all be frantically downing aspirin to ward off Covid. Whether ivermectin has any benefits against Covid is currently being investigated – drugs do get repurposed after all. Some countries have indeed been using it for Covid treatment (sometimes just to appease sick patients who are convinced it will help). But the trials and meta-analysis referred to by Weinstein and his associates are not conclusive in the way they claim; some have even been retracted because of concerns about fraud. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">On the other hand, there is a completely transparent, global, real-world study on the effectiveness and safety of the vaccines, because they are literally being taken by people almost everywhere, and the death rates plummet as a result. The data comes straight from the horse’s mouth, as it were.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">However, these dubious claims about ivermectin and the vaccines have been heard by millions of listeners and YouTube viewers, most of whom follow these intellectual dark web types precisely because of their insatiable anti-mainstream appetite. In other words, they are ready to believe whatever the opposite of the ‘establishment’ happens to be. If mainstream medicine did come around to endorsing ivermectin, these audiences would probably move on to something else.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In the meantime, some of those who are doubtful about the vaccines have convinced themselves that ivermectin is a great alternative. And now the seeds of this campaign are beginning to bear fruit. A British man called Leslie Lawrenson recently died having chosen not to get vaccinated. He had shared DarkHorse info on his Facebook. Caleb Wallace, from “San Angelo Freedom Fighters” in the USA, was self-medicating with ivermectin, and died in August after getting Covid. Dr. Pierre Korey, who had called ivermectin “miraculous” before a Senate Committee, recently got Covid, despite using ivermectin to prevent himself getting Covid. And then there’s all those buying the horse paste. </p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyHdY9-hoHkhYloGxm0q8_-4ErMhZDDN1cuhp3SXaai5eOLHwreF1eNR1AIgLkWQ4kUMI-n0SIbPBOPccjdwJ1GNvK9m5xmbBxG0tluYFStJ5PtUY5MooMOuH6gGsbiusuyiLz7kCx8szX/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1379" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyHdY9-hoHkhYloGxm0q8_-4ErMhZDDN1cuhp3SXaai5eOLHwreF1eNR1AIgLkWQ4kUMI-n0SIbPBOPccjdwJ1GNvK9m5xmbBxG0tluYFStJ5PtUY5MooMOuH6gGsbiusuyiLz7kCx8szX/w251-h320/Screenshot_2021-09-01-16-00-43-65_cbf47468f7ecfbd8ebcc46bf9cc626da.jpg" width="251" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">With regulators not recommending ivermectin for Covid prevention or treatment, those convinced of its benefits aren’t often able to get it through the regular means. Instead, they’ve discovered that horse dewormer also contains ivermectin, and decided to take that. While ivermectin is a well-established drug, the version designed for animals could poison you, and that’s what’s been happening quite a lot.</span></div><div><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwS7loQlwAkYv3QNdJvZaeUbeceBtIPgqT4dI4lHyU4SWMhrcviRhVD_KjOctv8UO07EvkSHoNmEu5S58Um0NOw6B9Tzl5Xhtrz_qkZ8LfGSQ3gZgwsaGyjpqlmobWEpdNqcwGe8Sh_nUW/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="1080" height="152" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwS7loQlwAkYv3QNdJvZaeUbeceBtIPgqT4dI4lHyU4SWMhrcviRhVD_KjOctv8UO07EvkSHoNmEu5S58Um0NOw6B9Tzl5Xhtrz_qkZ8LfGSQ3gZgwsaGyjpqlmobWEpdNqcwGe8Sh_nUW/" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">But the real problem here is how the alt-medicine racket gets entangled with the anti-vax message, and heightens the cultish paranoia that certain people have with the whole pandemic saga. The result is that these people aren’t getting the approved, free vaccines which are by all accounts really effective. That extends the pandemic for the rest of us.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">But I would say that, wouldn’t I? Because I’m one of the MSM-brainwashed sheeple.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In an April article on OutbreakNewsToday detailing an FDA warning about using animal ivermectin, a commenter called Susan, using fairly typical language, implored others to “STOP BELIEVING THE LIES THAT THE LIBS AND MEDIA ARE SPILLING. BE PROACTIVE. I WISH I HAD KNOWN ABOUT IVERMECTIN FOR MY SON, MAYBE HE WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN SO SICK.”</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">As natural as it is to mock people who are ingesting horse paste and getting diarrhoea when there is a perfectly good, safe vaccine available for them, unfortunately the mocking and shaming doesn’t change their minds. They just look for someone online with an MD after their name who agrees with what they already think, and double down. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">A lot of the jokes about ivermectin understandably refer to the fact that people are eating some disgusting paste designed for deworming horses, which sounds crazy, while most of the thinking <i>behind</i> the craziness is a belief that this drug, ivermectin, should be rolled out as a Covid treatment. That is far less crazy, especially if you don’t know anything about medicine and someone with Dr. in front of their name or MD after their name has been telling you it’s a wonder drug. Far less crazy, but still wrong.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><div><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Fundamentally, the fact that many of the horse paste eaters got their idea from a podcast called DarkHorse is too good not to make jokes about. We are just human after all, and the human flaws that lead some down rabbit holes are the same flaws that make it irresistible for others to mock them, even sometimes the dead ones.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTRDZCB_C9Fry5PMTPI4KzmM3Flqmlzfl0ben85861L-WQ_k5QNEaQWnZ67E9B9vh37xzxlhv21eqGzfHQ0LAdFRvEx_9tzo6VqNOVVafEraj-8UD8PHl2vlV0qWI0VnOhS4a4txaqpOFW/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="859" data-original-width="1080" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTRDZCB_C9Fry5PMTPI4KzmM3Flqmlzfl0ben85861L-WQ_k5QNEaQWnZ67E9B9vh37xzxlhv21eqGzfHQ0LAdFRvEx_9tzo6VqNOVVafEraj-8UD8PHl2vlV0qWI0VnOhS4a4txaqpOFW/" width="302" /></a></div><br /></div><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Some of the ivermectin advocates have begun to distance themselves from the controversy as their claims look stupider and the real-world damage becomes more apparent. But it seems that for ivermectin, the horse has already bolted. Black markets selling the stuff are popping up all over, and those touting the drug have an attentive audience. They don’t want to change horses in midstream. The conspiracy industry is galloping on, and we’re all cracking the whip.</p></div><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668525832487699201.post-29112951817342968052021-09-01T05:35:00.001-07:002021-09-10T04:53:28.771-07:00Falling Men: the cruel circularity of America’s War on Terror<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig7TL9SdBYgGOx0zxwrQlyYJaY3TOpyd_4fzv8ROA6dZlR78mnGparkXpPS9lOW0mr81lZLqsaOyItKFDGLh1zEe0ZUI-CFDuwgo1kztG19lVf4qoS7oUE5jCPHSBaURtlYPUuySaM80Ag/s1018/Screenshot+2021-08-25+at+12.54.44.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="634" data-original-width="1018" height="329" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig7TL9SdBYgGOx0zxwrQlyYJaY3TOpyd_4fzv8ROA6dZlR78mnGparkXpPS9lOW0mr81lZLqsaOyItKFDGLh1zEe0ZUI-CFDuwgo1kztG19lVf4qoS7oUE5jCPHSBaURtlYPUuySaM80Ag/w530-h329/Screenshot+2021-08-25+at+12.54.44.png" width="530" /></a></div><span style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: "Modelica Regular"; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: "Modelica Regular"; font-size: 15px;">*The first <a href="https://dorseteye.com/falling-men-the-cruel-circularity-of-americas-war-on-terror/" target="_blank">article</a> I wrote in a long time went to Dorset Eye, "independent citizen media" with a decidedly lefty stance on things. They didn't credit me as the writer, which is maybe OK because it's a bit of a dodgy article with a fairly flakey central metaphor.* </span></p><p><span style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: "Modelica Regular"; font-size: 15px;">One of the most shocking images to come out of the September 11th attack on the World Trade Centre was that of the Falling Man. Shot by Associated Press photographer Richard Drew, the image showed a nameless male plummeting through the air, set against the metallic backdrop of one of the towers. Not unlike the inhabitant of the Tomb of the Unknown Solder, the Falling Man was in a way representative of all the victims of that day. It invited us to ask ourselves what we would do in that situation, when the flames get so close and the only exit is certain death. Just like the attack itself, it was almost unthinkable.</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: "Modelica Regular"; font-size: 15px;"> </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: "Modelica Regular"; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 26px; margin-top: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">That 9/11 changed the world is a truism that only becomes more apparent as time goes on. In response America’s neoconservatives sought to right the wrongs of the Gulf War and get rid of Saddam Hussein; liberal interventionists sought to extend democracy to those living under the yoke of despots. A muscular, righteous America was going to put things right – so the story went.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: "Modelica Regular"; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 26px; margin-top: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">But while attempting to extend its values to the world, the US struggled to hold true to those values. They fudged the evidence on Saddam’s WMDs, collaborated with Afghan warlords when it suited them, tortured enemies or presumed enemies, extended surveillance of citizens, and got around the tricky problem of judicial due process by setting up a prison at Guantanamo Bay. Tales of war crimes, human rights abuses, and civil rights violations abound.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: "Modelica Regular"; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 26px; margin-top: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">The Iraq War ended with no plan for the aftermath, giving rise to an even more megalomaniacal terrorist organisation, Isis. George W. Bush had said that “I believe that democracy will prevail, so long as the United States stays with these young democracies to help them.” But far from promoting democracy abroad, America was losing faith in it at home. Enter: Donald Trump.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: "Modelica Regular"; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 26px; margin-top: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">This summer, as the last American troops began heading home from its longest war, it didn’t take long for the Taliban to sweep across Afghanistan. Unsupported Afghan troops had enough experience to know that it was not worth fighting. As the Taliban surrounded Kabul, the president fled, a transition was agreed, and everyday citizens, including many who had some kind of connection with the West’s mission there, tried to escape. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: "Modelica Regular"; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 26px; margin-top: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">This long chapter of the War on Terror ended with another spectacle of men falling from great heights – not from collapsing, smoke-filled buildings, but from aeroplanes. Instead of flames, the danger was Taliban militants rearmed with abandoned US hardware. Instead of being missiles, these planes were the last hope of desperate people.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: "Modelica Regular"; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 26px; margin-top: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">Importantly from an American perspective, these were Afghan bodies falling into Afghan soil. Whether it’s just the political reality, or whether Joe Biden is more similar to Trump than he’d like to admit, America First is the guiding principle of the White House. It is a lesson which America’s NATO allies – and Taiwan – will have learned, and was summed up by Biden bemoaning the Afghan Army’s supposed refusal to fight: “American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves.” Would the same logic not have applied for the British and French in World War 2?</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: "Modelica Regular"; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 26px; margin-top: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">America’s War on Terror was never going to prevent terrorism <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">per se</i>, but its leaders could hope that its spectacles would occur elsewhere. In a way that mission is complete – but for how long? Islamists around the world are now cheering a job well done, vindicated that God is smiling upon them. Hard won democratic freedoms have been lost, and we could be at the beginning of another wave of attacks. It’s easy to conclude that, for all the lost lives, we’ve come full circle.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: "Modelica Regular"; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 26px; margin-top: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">But in fact we are not back where we started, because the wider picture has changed. America on the world stage has been damaged perhaps beyond repair in the years since 9/11, starting with the illegal and botched Iraq War. Barack Obama’s statesmanship was undermined by his hollow words on Syrian chemical weapons and the Russian annexation of Crimea, and Trump’s lack of statesmanship alienated allies and emboldened enemies. It was, after all, Trump who gave Kim Jong-un international legitimacy, who got Iran enriching uranium again, who withdrew troops from Syria, enabling Isis terrorists to escape from prison <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">en masse. </i>And, yes, it was he who warmly agreed a deal with the Taliban to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: "Modelica Regular"; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 26px; margin-top: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">Meanwhile, the great game of global influence ramps up. Russian whataboutism has portrayed America as hypocrites as the Kremlin engages in its campaigns of division, assassination, and sometimes outright invasion. China has presented itself as the adult in the room, refusing to lecture other countries on their domestic situation, expecting the same in return, and buying loyalty through investment. China will extend that attitude towards Afghanistan’s new rulers, and cement their authority in the region. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: "Modelica Regular"; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 26px; margin-top: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;">If Karl Marx was correct that historical events occur twice – first as tragedy, then as farce – then the American withdrawal of Afghanistan is surely the farce that we’ve been waiting for. But it’s not only a retreat from Afghanistan; America is withdrawing from the world stage. The falling men – one at home and one abroad – represent America’s 21st century malaise, its domestic convulsions as it comes to terms with its relative decline.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668525832487699201.post-36521534592721448202017-01-08T14:04:00.003-08:002017-01-08T14:04:56.259-08:00The Social Acceptability List 2016<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Another year whipped by, and it turned out to be a year like no other. Rulebooks are being burned and ripped up and rewritten, and what’s deemed acceptable has become a game of trial and error. The Overton Window has been stretched, but perhaps only for those with the most vocal following. So what’s in and what’s out? The Fallen in Public look at our politicians, newspapers and netizens - What’s in? What’s out? What’s OK? What’s not? Read on to find out...</span><br />
<div>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #222222; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>IT'S IN!</i> </span><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-large;">Scaring
the shit out of people</span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">AT THEIR BEST, CLOWNS ARE UNSETTLING, BUT IN 2016 THEY WENT TERRIFYING.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> The killer clown craze, starting in the USA, later embraced in the
UK, Canada and Australia was born by social media, and boosted by the constantly mortified traditional media, putting fear or joy into readers' hearts depending on their blood pressure. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">A harmless prank or a menace? </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Why not both? </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Clowns
with knives were seen, lending weight to the theory that these are a new breed
of terrorist; panic that paedophiles and sexual molesters might disguise
themselves as clowns spread in the news, which would be a strange occurrence
because these sorts tend to have more success when they disguise themselves as
people. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">How coincidental is it that this craze occurred in 2016? ‘You
have no right not to be scared’ weirdly parallels the ‘you have no right to not
be offended’ jibe coming from the anti-liberals on Twitter, or those who wear
T-shirts saying ‘Does my American flag offend you? Call 1-800-LEAVE-THE-USA’. It’s
been a year of victory for those that scaring the shit out of people, being
offensive, being unkind and inconsiderate, all for kicks is appropriate because
it’s not illegal. Don’t like it? Deal with it.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Even scarier were the clowns on the TV – Boris Johnson,
Michael Gove, Nigel Farage, and Donald Trump – proving once and for all that
clowns aren’t funny but just give you nightmares.</span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668525832487699201.post-33193772882176933962017-01-03T14:06:00.000-08:002017-01-08T13:28:09.423-08:00The Social Acceptability List 2016<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-size: 20.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Another year whipped by, and it turned out to be a year like no other. Rulebooks are being burned and ripped up and rewritten, and what’s deemed acceptable has become a game of trial and error. The Overton Window has been stretched, but perhaps only for those with the most vocal following. So what’s in and what’s out? The Fallen in Public look at our politicians, newspapers and netizens - What’s in? What’s out? What’s OK? What’s not? Read on to find out...</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 20.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></span>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 20.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><i>IT'S IN! </i>Strongmen </span></b></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 20.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"></span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 107%;">“I could
stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue, shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any
voters.” Donald Trump</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">After thirty years of whinging, sensitive liberals ruling
the world, it’s time for the Strongmen. Packaged and sold as the answer to all
problems, strongmen are being chosen by their populations to halt the liberal
march towards doom, with its nightmarish vision of people getting along. The strongmen
of choice are headed by president-elect Donald Trump and his Russian friend,
the indestructible Vladimir Putin, but others are making their mark: </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Segoe UI"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Recep Tayyip Erdogan</span><span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "calibri";">was in 2013 a mere Prime Minister, when he began the plans for
replacing Gezi Park with a shopping centre. Protests followed, and took on a
hue of anger directed not only at redevelopment misery, but other concerns
about the direction of this proudly democratic Islamic country, an issue that
many had seen coming given Erdogan’s history and right-wing Islamic ideology.
But Erdogan’s crackdown and his authoritarian figure must have delighted some,
because he was elected president the next year. </span><span style="font-family: "calibri";">
After blaming a coup on <span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Fethullah Gülen, who lives safely in the USA,</span></span> Erdogan’s relationship with Obama cooled, and with Putin, warmed, despite shooting down the latter's plane earlier in the year.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">On the other side of the planet the Philippines elected
Rodrigo Duterte, who unleashed ‘death squads’ to murder suspected drug dealers
and users. Unrepentant, Duterte defended himself against ‘corrupt’ journalists
and their questions, called Obama a ‘son of a whore’, and made friendly waves
across the sea towards China. Strike 2 for America’s hopeful first black
president. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">China’s president Xi, while far gentler in tone than his
brethren, is championed at home as a strongman - the great counterweight to
America’s might - and also has in his corner the added kudos of not even
pretending to be democratic.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">While the UK hasn’t quite elected one, much of the political
muscle has been provided by our very own autocrat-in-waiting, Nigel Farage,
who’s fast learned that demagoguery can be sought and found </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">and</span></i><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> enacted without the need of the
ballot box. Wearing the mask of a democrat, he ran his party like Mao and uses
headline grabbing controversies to get his name out, rather than reason or
debate. After bemoaning Obama’s involvement in the UK/EU referendum as meddling
in UK affairs, he went and did the same thing in the USA. All the while getting
the benefit of the doubt from our media.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Having realised that neither bigotry nor lies can dent his
appeal, Farage went hypocrisy crazy by endorsing Trump’s mad suggestion that he
would be a great ambassador. If only all authoritarian leaders could pick their
ambassadors, hey Nige. Over Christmas he worked Berlin’s terrorist attack into
his favourite political cause (destroying the EU) and called Brendan Cox an
extremist for supporting the anti-extremist organisation, Hope Not Hate. On
Christmas Day, this ‘defender of Christian values’ told his Twitter followers
to ‘ignore’ the ‘negative’ Archbishop of Canterbury, as if Farage’s followers
weren’t already ignoring those who call for peace, understanding and unity.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">With more trouble coming,</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">
al la </span></i><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Brexit, Farage will be poised to make it the fault of liberals and
elected politicians, rather than himself. He might just do it. For these strongmen
aren’t just winging it – they’ve managed to get the ears of the electorates,
seizing the vacuum of trust in the political establishment. Their self-consciously
anti-pc language is cheered on as it gets on liberals’ nerves. Even lies and
hypocrisy are applauded as long as liberals are being hounded – the strongmen
act as leaders of movements in which the liar lies on behalf of the mob,
fighting for what they think is a bigger cause. Populations in fear grant their
leaders this licence. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Much talk of late on democracy, people power and how
important it is. It’s one of the few things which simply cannot be questioned.
But the rise of the strongmen shows that people, albeit unconsciously, are
desperate to be led, and to have blind faith that the leader’s cruel worlds
will only manifest in actions which affect others. Democratic authoritarianism is in!</span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668525832487699201.post-83372167444590694772016-12-29T08:42:00.000-08:002016-12-29T08:46:05.917-08:00The Social Acceptability List 2016<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<br />
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Another year whipped by, and it turned out to be a
year like no other. Rulebooks are being burned and ripped up and rewritten, and
what’s deemed acceptable has become a game of trial and error. The Overton
Window has been stretched, but perhaps only for those with the most vocal
following. So what’s in and what’s out? The Fallen in Public look at our
politicians, newspapers and netizens - What’s in? What’s out? What’s OK? What’s
not? Read on to find out...</span><br />
</span><br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">IT’S OUT! </span></i></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Experts:</span><span style="font-size: 28.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "austin news text semibold"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“I think people in this country have had enough of
experts.” Michael Gove, 2016.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Give me your academics, your economists, your huddled central
bankers yearning to speak free, the wretched refuse of your teeming think tanks.
And bind and gag them and throw them out to sea. If 2016 was anything, it was
the year that people stopped listening to people who know more about things
than they do, and this distrust – this victory of blind gut instinct – has been
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">celebrated</i>. This is a victory of the
little people, said Nigel Farage, self-appointed king of the little people. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">It’s been a long time coming. Experts have been ushered onto
news panels next to politicians and pundits for some time now, and as the
latter two’s trust has waned over the years, it’s no surprise that the third
has been condemned. Digital media has done its part by making everyone a
journalist (read expert) and most analyses condensable into 142 characters. An
entire thesis can be cast in to the bin with one comment below the line: “What
is this shit?” </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">After two years of surprise results in the UK and the US,
pollsters were the first to look daft. If they can get it wrong, pundits
wondered, maybe <i>all</i> experts are wrong? And maybe, just maybe, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the opposing position to that of experts is
correct by definition.</i> Yep, find out what experts think, and choose the
other option – that’s where we’re at. “Experts built the Titanic,” noted an insightful
caller on Radio 2.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Economists have been making bad predictions for all of
eternity; it’s not their fault if politicians have presented them as cast iron
guarantees, rather than a collection of estimates within set parameters. But
economic orthodoxy, faith in the neoliberal model, has no doubt blinded
economists to failures: the IMF, the ECB and central banks in the West have
been peddling neoliberal economic policy (austerity, privatisation,
deregulation, etc.) regardless of evidence contrary to its expectations, and
evidence of poor results. The reason? Too many rich people are doing too well. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">You’d expect the cynics of economic experts to be crying out
against neoliberalism, right? Well, curiously enough Michael Gove hasn’t gone
this far, perhaps because the economic consensus, the one he’s been telling
people to ignore, is largely based on policies made possible and popular by one
Margaret Thatcher, and are rather close to his heart. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The depth of the anti-economist jibe is this: they didn’t see
the financial crash coming; they haven’t fixed the euro. And look at Greece –
eeww. Who could argue with that? A child can understand it.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The distrust extends to the high reaches of academia, charged
with being left-wing brainwashers by a McCarthyist press, the judiciary,
labelled ‘enemies of the people’ by the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Daily
Mail</i> for making judgements on constitutional law, and international
organisations like NATO, the UN, the International Criminal Court. These post
WW2 organisations are a pain in the ass for Russia, China and Israel, and now
America has a president who’ll finally sympathise.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Against the experts are pitted the people, the real people. "There's only one expert that matters, and that's you, the voter," Gisela Stuart of Vote Leave puked into a microphone earlier this year, in a wonderful celebration of 2016, the year when truth and knowledge went relative.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668525832487699201.post-92079596147950834332016-12-27T03:04:00.000-08:002016-12-29T07:45:39.498-08:00The Social Acceptability List 2016<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"></span><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Another year whipped by, and it turned out to be a
year like no other. Rulebooks are being burned and ripped up and rewritten, and
what’s deemed acceptable has become a game of trial and error. The Overton
Window has been stretched, but perhaps only for those with the most vocal
following. So what’s in and what’s out? The Fallen in Public look at our politicians,
newspapers and netizens - What’s in? What’s out? What’s OK? What’s not? Read on
to find out...</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
</div>
</span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: x-large;"><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<i>IT'S IN: Walls!</i></div>
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">"I WILL BUILD A GREAT WALL" – Donald Trump.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Walls are back! Some thought that walls had had their day,
but they were wrong. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The Great Wall of China, Hadrian’s Wall and the Wailing Wall
are great historical walls of fear, division and protection, and so are our
contemporary walls. When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 signifying the end of
capitalist/communist, east/west, democratic/authoritarian divisions, the
presumed new order was to be one of unfettered (as much as humanly possible)
trade and travel, typified in institutions like the EU. Liberal democracy was
the answer, it was said – problem solved. But with capital flight,
gentrification, outsourcing and (deep breath) immigration, along with other
traits of neoliberal capitalism – wage stagnation, job insecurity, etc. – western
populations have rediscovered their love of being boxed in. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">It’s no great surprise that immigration tends to be the big
villain. Donald Trump’s presidential campaign wallowed in the dirty language of
xenophobia, promising to build a wall to keep out Mexicans. Britain doesn’t
need a wall to keep out Europeans, because we already have a moat, but the
sentiments were the same: fear of outsiders coming to wreak havoc and steal
jobs. The simplest answers are given for the most complex of problems, and what
could be simpler than a wall? If Ukip ran on a ticket of widening the moat,
they’d surely sail to victory.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The EU has an external border, but since 2015 temporary
internal borders have been reintroduced all around France and in certain areas
around Germany, Austria, Denmark, Sweden and Norway. Going rogue, Hungary has
been whipping up walls, one alongside its non-EU neighbour Serbia; one alongside
its ‘open border’ neighbour Romania. The EU external border is gradually
becoming more rigorously fortified. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Not one to be left out, Britain has joined in the effort to
combat the Migrant Crisis because she is beginning to feel the effects, and so
in an effort to stop refugees and better life-seekers from getting into trucks
and getting into the UK, Britain has built a wall in Calais, one kilometre
long. It’s a classic example of treating the symptoms rather than the causes. Perhaps
they are practicing for the post-Brexit world, which could include a hard
border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, and maybe, if all hell really
breaks loose and Scotland goes independent, one there too! I’m guessing no one
will want to talk about causes there too.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Walls are nothing if not symbolic, and sometimes you can
have the symbolic aspect without the physical thing. So non-tangible walls are
on the up too: London is seen as an out-of-touch enclave of Liberal Metropolitan Elitists; Washington is a swamp which Trump has promised to drain; European provincials are unsure whether they should hate Berlin or Brussels more; Russians and Ukrainians despise one another; the English think the Scots are taking their money, the Scots think the English are taking their freedom; the British young blame the British old for taking them out of the EU; liberals blame bigots for taking them out of the EU; bigots blame politicians, globalists and soppy wet liberals for creating an EU that had to be left, and my gran blames everyone for everything. Extremely high, albeit imaginary, walls separate all sides.<br />
<br />
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">And the digital world makes it super easy to discover just how hated you are. Social media is rife with communities which communicate in echo
chambers, learning how to use keywords to separate their friends and their foes – libtards, Brexiteers, Remoaners,
Leavers, Remainers, MSM, Daily Hate, Guardianistas, ‘out of touch’, progressives,
‘regressives’, control, ‘religion of peace’, ‘waycist’. The internet, striving
to replicate and re-present the anxieties of the real world and doing a damn
fine job. </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668525832487699201.post-52004421922444932942016-12-26T12:01:00.000-08:002016-12-26T12:01:02.051-08:00The Social Acceptabilty List 2016
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">Last Christmas, we gave you a list. </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;"><a href="http://fallinginpublic.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/social-acceptability-list-2015.html" target="_blank">The Social Acceptability List 2015</a></span></i><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;"> sought to reflect on a year of
social discourse; how certain concepts, words and things moved towards or away
from the so-called Overton Window. The list was this:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">It was in!</span></b></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">islamophobia</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, </span></b><span style="font-family: Calibri;">war,
voting out the box, ties with china, shaming </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">It was out!</span></b></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">privilege, global warming denial. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">A year on, we’re able to see how things have changed, or haven't. </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Islamophobia</span></b><span style="font-family: Calibri;">’s still riding high with
burkini bans in France and “Donald J Trump is calling for a total and complete
shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives
can figure out what is going on”. </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">War</span></b><span style="font-family: Calibri;">,
too, is ever popular, with the one in Syria reaching what appears to be a disastrous
climax.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The social activism of ‘</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">shaming’</span></b><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
and ‘checking one’s (or another’s) </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">privilege’</span></b><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
has continued, and the tactics and concepts of the left have spread to the
right: the so-called white male’s fightback is simply identity politics without the understanding
of historical prejudices. Hence where privilege last year was <i>out</i>, it’s now <i>in</i>.
The Identitarian Movement of Europe, and the Alt-right movement in the US, seek
power in their white, male identities in the same way that Beyonce found it in
her black, female one. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Voting out the box</span></b><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
(Syriza, Podemos, Ukip, Corbyn...) was big in 2015 but 2016 has been defined by it, specifically by Brexit and
Trump – two votes which threaten to throw entire societies into the wilderness.
2016 has been marked by a vocal disgust at those who have voted in this way,
leading to debates about how and where people get their information. Those who
question Facebook as a reliable news source and/or the Trump/Farage-led peddlers
of deliberate mistruth and misrepresentation are told they are scornful of
voters who warmed to it, and are, ultimately, undemocratic.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Finally, discussion of </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">global
warming</span></b><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> has been drowned out by talk of other things, but conspiracies in
general are up and global warming denial has been bolstered by Trump, who
claimed that manmade global warming is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese to thwart
the American economy. On the back of these loose words, and with a rise in
protectionist economic policy sentiments, </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">ties
with China</span></b><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> could be in question. Trump has taken a pop at China’s South
China Sea militarisation, taken issue with China’s low valued currency, and
taken a call from Tsai Yingwen, Taiwan’s independence-leaning president,
hitting China precisely where it hurts. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">After 2015’s glory year in Anglo-Chinese relations, typified
in Xi Jinping’s romantic trip to David Cameron’s pub, and George Osborne’s
glowing expectations of trade with the Chinese, 2016 has been full of stumbles.
The Brexit vote has caused worry and bemusement in China, who value stability
over pretty much everything. The new UK PM Theresa May ordered a review into
the Chinese-backed Hinkley Point power station because of security concerns.
But things settled down later: May went ahead with Hinkley (as if she had a
choice), and China’s state-backed SinoFortone bought the pub chain that
includes Cameron’s pub so Xi could toast this little victory.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Keep posted for the Social Acceptability List 2017! </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668525832487699201.post-14293574255285184672016-01-17T17:54:00.000-08:002016-01-17T18:03:23.398-08:00The Scourge Part 7.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"> <a href="http://fallinginpublic.blogspot.com/2015/11/scourge-of-trail.html" target="_blank">Previously on The Sourge: Link to Part 1.</a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; line-height: 115%;">Part 7: On Our Way. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">It was freezing. Hellishly
freezing. What have I got myself in for? I woke at 7 wearing vastly more
clothes than I had fallen asleep in. Dave was making green tea
and looked rosy and alert. After a few sips I too was rosy. It was the first
day of the walk, and we were almost on our way.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“A little bread and
Snickers, and we’ll be on our way!” said Dave, stretching in the morning sun.
It looked to be a good one. The clouds were high and ruffled, like silk sheets,
and the sun was in the east, hardly peeking over the mountains and hills which
we were soon to cross. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">It was a tad ironic that our
first stint towards the east was to be spent heading northwest. This was to
reach St. Bees Head, the most westerly point of North West England. Before
that, we were obliged by tradition to soak our boots in the sea. Before that,
however, something had come to my attention which needed attention. After that, we'll be on our way, I told myself.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">A rare sequence of logic had
occurred in my head during the cold night. My passport, which was now at the Belorussian embassy, was going to be sent to Dave’s house while we were away.
It dawned on me that it might need to be signed for, and then it dawned on me
that Dave’s girlfriend was not going to be in the house. This could be a
problem.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“It’ll be fine,” Dave said.
It was the reassurance of someone whose life wasn’t going to be affected
whether it turned out fine or not.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“How?” I retorted.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“A neighbour could sign for
it, or you pick it up from the depot or something.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">I bit off a nail. “If it
goes back to the depot, I won’t be able to get it before I have to go to
France.” My schedule was tight: return from the North on Saturday, leave on a
giant trip to Beijing on train on Sunday. “I’m going to phone my mum, and then
we’ll be on our way.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">It was 10:30 before we were on our way. I won’t bore you with the arduous and contradictory obstacles which
conspired to thwart my humble attempts to secure my passport, save for the
simple fact that it was torturous and Homeric in its scope. And it wasn’t over:
I’d have to find times (and phone signal) to phone my parents, the Belorussian
embassy and, now, my aunt, during the week.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">By the time I’d made some
kind of vague arrangement, I was too fed up to do the stupid boots-in-the-sea
nonsense. I found Dave reading by the beach and joined him. “Fuck it,” I said,
“let’s go.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">The beginning of the walk is
marked by a plaque. We were going to take a photo next to this plaque when an
extended family chortled up to it and began taking a range of photos, as one
would at a wedding. The two of us stood patiently for a moment, with me and my
newly heightened stress levels radiating a conspicuous aura of impatience, and
then we left. I shook my head in appalled disgust at these wretched foes and
their dimwittery. Photos!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">We left and marched up the
hill. The walk was immediately taxing, the incline and heavy bags putting
strain on our hitherto untested shoulders. The extended family, who we’d by now
named the Fellowship, were right behind us, chuckling and whooping. They
overtook us when I phoned my parents again to talk more about passports, and we
overtook them when they stopped to drink water. Every time we passed we engaged
in a quintessentially British bit of theatre, remarking on the weather and the
challenges ahead. This peaked when we reached a river, cut deep into the high
rock which we had to descend to cross. There was a bridge at the bottom and a
kissing gate. A naive walker such as myself didn’t know the term ‘kissing
gate’; for those as ignorant as me, it’s a gate on a spring which pushes
against a fence which has to be pushed open and squeezed past before you let
the gate fling back against the fence. It’s like an airlock for the
countryside, stopping animals roam freely. On the other side of the gate and
the river, Dave stopped to apply sun cream.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“They’re coming,” I warned
him under my breath. But it was too late. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Here we are again!” laughed
the approaching woman, currently spearheading the Fellowship. With three
generations, ranging from about 55 to twelve, they were surprisingly spritely.
Embarrassingly so.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Waiting for us at the
kissing gate!” another woman chuckled.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“We’ll have to stop meeting
like this!” said a man, presumably some kind of uncle, who’d begun to enjoy the
euphemistic shenanigans. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“We couldn’t resist,” I
said.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">They stopped this time to
exchange backgrounds. We explained that we were from London (which isn’t
strictly true but makes the conversation simpler) and this is our first big
walk. They were more local than us, from Coventry, and one in their ranks had
done it before. This time, they planned only to walk half way. They all had two
walking sticks each, which looked professional but seemed, to us, superfluous.
As for the kids, it was their first time doing a long-distance walk, and
although they shrieked with delight and a zest for adventure, I pitied them.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“See you next time!” Dave
yelled as they strolled up the valley, before lamenting to me in a quieter tone,
“We’ll never be rid of them.” Wanting to escape the Fellowship was no trifling
matter: our grand visions of the untamed country, the rugged path trodden down
by a couple of silent, hardy wanderers, was not aided by the happy-go-luckiness
of an extended family high on fresh air and good spirits. It was far too <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">nice</i>.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">The next time we passed them
we did it at such speed that I was tempted to make race car sounds as we
overtook. We’d gotten our act together, with water and sun cream and snacks all
in reaching distance. Bag straps were all tightened and our march was seriously
on; it was our Nazgul to the Fellowship on the next hill. This time, we’d
decided, we’d leave them for dust. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">We achieved this, and spent
another two hours hugging the cracked clifftop walking north. The rock was red
and aged, freckled with clumps of grass. We considered the few sheltered spots
hidden in the sloping grassland, weighing them up for potential camping spots,
practicing for the coming evenings. Across the Irish Sea was the Isle of Man
and the peaks of southern Scotland, and besides us was St. Bees Lighthouse,
which has been guiding the local ships in some form since 1718. The one we were
passing was built in 1822 after the previous had met its fate in the embers of
a fire which killed the lighthouse keeper’s wife and their five children. An
image of the Fellowship huddled in the corner under a blanket of smoke flashed
across my mind – I couldn’t help it. On that note, we banked eastwards and said
goodbye to the coast. Finally, we agreed, we were on our way.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668525832487699201.post-89685035228909815792016-01-10T21:53:00.000-08:002016-01-17T17:59:21.820-08:00Scourge of the Trail, Part 6<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: x-small; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Previously on <i>The Scourge</i> (<a href="http://fallinginpublic.blogspot.com/2015/11/scourge-of-trail.html" target="_blank">link to part 1</a>) </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN">Part VI: St. Bees.</span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: x-small; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Virgin Trains – they look fast, with that sloped
front and stripes down the side, but they’re not. Fast enough to kill you if
you crash, yes, but not fast enough to get to Carlisle in less than four hours. By
any standard that’s not a good deal – if something is going to be dangerous, it
should at least be efficient.</span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: x-small; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">It was five before we wandered out into the
citadel of Carlisle. We had half an hour to waste here before our connection to
St. Bees, so we bought coffee, newspapers and sandwiches and wandered around
the city gates. Being on the border of England and Scotland, the gift shops are
all full of Scottish souvenirs. It was comforting to know that I could come
away with Scottish souvenirs without having to set foot in actual Scotland. I
wondered if there were English souvenir shops just over the border on the
Scottish side.</span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: x-small; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">In the news, the hitherto peripheral figure of
Jeremy Corbyn was making seismic leaps towards political leadership, and
astonishing pundits in the process; and a British scientist was being ripped
apart by the lions of social media for making an ill-advised joke about women. </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: x-small; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">As we debated the efficacy with which a slip-up
can turn into a career-threatening scandal, our train came and very nearly
went. Carlisle station confused us and we found ourselves, heavy bags and all,
clambering along the platform hunting for our train. It was hidden on one of
those special little platforms, saved for the loser trains which the other
trains don’t like. All the cool trains went to London, Manchester, Birmingham,
Edinburgh. Ours, a rickety contraption, perhaps one of the first trains to have
been ever rolled out back in the 18<sup>th</sup> century when Britain was in
the throes of empire, contained only the poor sods that time left behind, who
had no choice but to venture, or return, to the bitter countryside; and the two
poorest sods, all going to one destination: St. Bees.</span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: x-small; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">We entered St. Bees cuddling the fields, looking
over the Irish Sea towards the Isle of Man and a rocky-looking Scotland to the
north. With these chunky bags, I felt conspicuous. I could hear the locals’
thoughts: another couple of city boys doing the Coast to Coast. Bet they won’t
last a day. </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: x-small; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Dave, being the man with the book, was
responsible for finding places to stay. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Coast
to Coast</i> not only gives you maps, but also a roundup of reputable
accommodation in any given place, complete with a little review of facilities,
price, and phone number. Our first night was to be spent</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: x-small; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">, for a cool £6 each,</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: x-small; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"> in the garden at Stonehouse Farm on a delightful patch of grass overseen by</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: x-small; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"> </span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: x-small; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">a blond chap who sounded, to
Dave’s ears, like his uncle. It was all very homey.</span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: x-small; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">It was our first time putting up tents and we
were grateful to have no one watching us, judging our ineptitude. Pegs were
getting lost and bent, and refusing to go in the ground. Arms were too weak to
force them. Poles were being thrown around, as were muttered expletives. Half
an hour later, however, we were able to look with pride at our new homes,
Dave’s palace and my pod. </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: x-small; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">The weather had turned, and a brisk wind had
picked up. We flip-flopped down to the beach to take a look at the sea. The
water was wholly uninviting, and we put off the C2C ritual of stepping in it
until tomorrow. We found the Queen’s Head and I had a fish and chips while Dave
had a vegetarian curry. We savoured it as if it were our last, for we were sure
it would be. Back in the tent, our ‘kitchen’ awaited.</span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: x-small; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">I read The Whitehaven News which told of the
attempts of workers at Sellafield nuclear plant to save their jobs, and the
contestants for Miss North West Great Britain, for which local farmyard animals
were added to make up the numbers. It was also reported that hundreds of moon
jellyfish had washed up on the beach at St. Bees, and the advice, against all
popular remedy beliefs, was not to piss on the sting. Another story was about
selficide – the act of dying while taking a selfie. People were electrocuting
themselves, falling into ravines, getting run over by trains, and so on; and
the craze was catching on all over the world. “Don’t take selfies,” Dave told
me with authority. “It’s simply not worth the risk.” </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: x-small; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">“I suppose it’s comeuppance for an immoral act of
narcissism,” I mused.</span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: x-small; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Sadly for me, the camera on my phone was half
broken, meaning only the selfie shot worked. To take a picture of something, I
had to take a ‘selfie’ and then awkwardly remove my self from the frame. This
was a bit of a balancing act even of steady, safe ground, but on a windy
mountain top...</span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: x-small; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">“You’re going to die,” said Dave, and took a sip
of IPA.</span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: x-small; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">I considered this for a moment. “Fuck it,” I
said. “I’m getting a beer.” </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: x-small; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">--</span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: x-small; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">In darkness we reached the tents. A cat was in
mine. I pushed him out and waddled in. The night air was brisk but my pod-tent
kept the chills at bay. With my tiny torch a-fixed to my head, I read a Matsuo
Basho haiku and went to sleep. </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: x-small; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">First winter rain,</span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: x-small; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">I plod on,</span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: x-small; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Traveller my name.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: x-small; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><a href="http://fallinginpublic.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-scourge-part-7.html" target="_blank">Take me to Part 7. </a></span></span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668525832487699201.post-18515932970973800992016-01-01T01:42:00.000-08:002016-01-01T01:42:49.601-08:00The Social Acceptabiltity List 2015
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">As the New Year ticks over, we reflect on a bumper year in the world of social discourse. Here’s a little run down of the movers and shakers in this year’s Social Acceptability List, which is compiled by the Fallen in Public and its patchy memory and is about what politicians, newspapers and netizens went on about and how. What’s in? What’s out? What’s OK? What’s not? Read on to find out...</span></span></span></span></span></div>
</span><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large;">In today's edition - <i>IT'S IN!</i> - </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: x-large;">Shaming!</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Until recently, shaming was a term probably more
associated with the honour killings you hear about in those nasty stories about
Muslims. Now it’s become a tool of the young, well-meaning, progressive Left.
It’s no surprise that social media is the arena where most of it plays out. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">In June, a scientist called Tim Hunt made a ‘joke’ to an
audience about women in the science profession. The media got wind of the
‘joke’ and did not find it funny. Commentators lined up to castigate the man,
and he was duly dropped from his position. Reactionaries cried ‘Liberal
fascists!’, ‘feminazis’ and, of course, ‘’political correctness gone mad”. But
the moment for sexist jokes has passed, and unless you’re ironically adopting
the role of the man who says wrong things in public, </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">a la </span></i><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Ricky Gervais in character, you can’t get away with saying
“female scientists cry when they’re criticised.” </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Some genuinely mean people have started a little group
called Overweight Haters Ltd, which hands out sanctimonious cards to people
they deem overweight. What purpose this has I have no idea. Those who condemn
the activity called it fat-shaming, and articles and memes have duly spread.
Slut-shaming, which kicked off this new era of shaming, had its modern rebirth
in 2011 in Canada when a policeman said that women could avoid sexual assault
by not dressing as ‘sluts’. The response was the Slutwalk, a protest against
the habit of some to blame the victims rather than the perpetrators of rape;
and an in-your-face expression of women’s rights to act how the hell they want
and fuck off if you don’t like it. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">The act of shaming is by no means confined to the left, but
the terminology is certainly lefty. Slut-shaming and fat-shaming are attributed
to the patriarchal and sexist society in which we live, and the enthusiastic, moralistic
exercise of the right to demean others. Both take place because the
expectations we have developed about how women (for the most part) should look
and behave, the answer being – hot but not </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">too</span></i><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">
naughty.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">But being hot leads to its own problems, as I well know. So
does Charlotte Proudman, who received a message on LinkedIn from an older man
who wanted to tell her that her photo was ‘the best LinkedIn picture [he’s]
ever seen!’ He also used the word ‘stunning,’ the wretched brute. Charlotte
replied smartly to her admirer and explained precisely why she was offended. So
far so good. Then came the shame. She screengrabbed it and shamed him all over
the place. Shamed him good, she did.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Since then, Proudman has become a Guardian columnist and
something on an expert on misogyny, leading some to conclude that she is a sly
opportunist who used the (fairly innocent, so they say) indiscretions of an
online contact to catapult herself into a new career. Others say she’s a torchbearer
of women’s issues, highlighting the supposed ‘innocence’ of everyday sexism
itself. Because this all takes place in the digital sphere, and concerns
closely held ethical beliefs, shaming has an ugly brother – the death threat.
Everyone who shames is apparently mortally vulnerable, encouraged to kill
themselves, or, in the case of women, promised rape. It’s as reliable as an
argument following Christmas dinner. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">To shame or to be shamed? That’s the little conundrum we’ve
gotten ourselves in to.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Shaming has this year become part of the social vernacular,
a nifty way to point out people’s wrongdoing. Sometimes it’s claimed by the
victim, as with fat-, slut- and now sweat-shaming, which is when people point
out the unseemly act of (women) perspiring. Other times it’s targeted at the
bad behaviour of others, such as the new big American hobby of drought-shaming.
This involves ‘naming and shaming’ those who use too much water in a drought. So,
for those that use the word, shaming is sometimes bad and sometimes good,
depending on the direction of criticism. Similarly, ‘tax-shaming’ has be coined
to deal with Amazon, Starbucks and their dodgy friends.
Gratuitous-banker-bonus-shaming hasn’t quite hit yet, but give it time. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">There are probably a few more shaming terms yet to be
introduced to makes sense of what is happening to the victimised among us. I
could see the year ahead offering up such gems as skinny-shaming,
hipster-shaming, diet-shaming, beard-shaming, depression-shaming,
vegetarian-shaming and Lidl-shaming. Indeed, anyone on the receiving end of
criticism or hate (which is a hell of a spectrum) is likely to cry ‘shamed!’
just as long as they can put a snappy prefix on it. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Then there’s the media, the big boys, who do an excellent
job of pointing out the shamelessness of women. Newspapers and magazines get paparazzi
shots and put red circles around the shameful thing, be it a sweat mark, a side-boob,
a patch of unshaven hair on a leg or in an armpit, drunkenness, swearing, or
whatever unladylike thing a woman, often famous, has done to degrade humanity.
The obvious response to this, as far as I can tell, is a lengthy campaign of
shame-shaming, directed at the tabloids. Over to you, Twitter.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
--------------------------</div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
p.s.
</div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">As part of what is sometimes called 'clicktivism', the rhetoric and politics of shaming have got much to do
with that of privilege, which made a little appearance on this blog <a href="http://fallinginpublic.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-social-acceptability-list-2015_24.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
</div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><span style="font-size: large;"></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668525832487699201.post-71068051481702565472015-12-30T17:49:00.000-08:002015-12-30T17:50:25.358-08:00The Social Acceptability List 2015<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">As the New Year approaches, we reflect on a bumper year in the world of social discourse. Here’s a little run down of the movers and shakers in this year’s Social Acceptability List, which is compiled by the Fallen in Public and its patchy memory and is about what politicians, newspapers and netizens went on about and how. What’s in? What’s out? What’s OK? What’s not? Read on to find out...</span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">In today's edition - <i>IT'S IN! </i><span style="font-size: x-large;">Ties With China!</span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Since China went red, the West has wanted to shun it. But
money is the loudest voice in politics, so gradually we’ve had to accept that
China is here to stay. The first step was recognising, in 1971, that the
communist People’s Republic of China was the China that got the seat at the UN,
at the expense of the Republic of China, which is now in the (mostly)
unrecognised state of Taiwan. Since then, money has spoken more and more until,
finally, the Chinese are building power plants in the UK.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">It’s an irony that the Tories have been far more gung-ho
about China, while Labour (who traditionally would be seen to be closer
bed-fellows) have been more hesitant. First we had George Osborne talking about
how his daughter is learning Mandarin, hailing it as the language of the future
(not without reason). Then, for a good while, we had an admiring commentary on
Chinese (and generally eastern) education. I live in China, and I know about
Chinese education, and it’s a rough, relentless, dispiriting slog. It stifles
creativity; it promotes mindless conformity. It’s also completely inseparable
from their overall culture, and works seamlessly to keep an abundance of people
from getting too rebellious. Chinese students memorise much, but learn little.
But their exam results are fantastic. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">But their fantastic exam results aren’t the cause of their
economic success. That, rather, is due to the cheap labour, long hours (many
unpaid), few regulations, fear of asserting any rights, and the sheer numbers
they have. It’s an economic rise led by the cruel whims of the markets and
backed by investment of the state, and (for its sins) it’s taken many millions out of absolute
poverty. The British governments’ similar willingness to leave everything to
the market, and to sell out their own labour force for cheaper labour in China,
is one of the reasons for the UK’s economic troubles. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">This year, the Tories finally filled the bathtub of
hypocrisy and slipped in to the bubbly warmth of a Chinese money spa. It
materialised as a full-blown, Chinese state-owned enterprise in the UK for
energy. Another high profile partner in the UK energy game is EDF, the
state-owned French company. All this while taking the axe to public funding of
services, and maintaining the narrative that publicly run organisations are
costly, bureaucratic and wasteful, and should be avoided at all costs. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">John McDonnell, in another attempt to ruin his career,
attempted to highlight this irony with his </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Little
Red Book</span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> prop, his dig at Osborne’s new friendship with the Communists. It
turned into a playground argument about who liked Mao more.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">Around the same time, China's leader Xi Jinping came to meet our duel leaders, Cameron and the Queen. The red carpet was laid and a propaganda coup was shown for all 1.3 billion Chinese back home. I saw the news reports on the subway TVs. The Chinese have a great fondness for the UK (despite being on the receiving end of British colonialism), and though they may be overworked and denied many rights, they are proud of the strength of their country. The British as allies was seen as vindication.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">China still gets mocked. Its rich shoppers get mocked at
Christmas; its taste for gambling and luxury is mocked as a great communist irony. Its policies get roundly criticised in the media, but not from
politicians. They’ve taken the Saudi approach: let’s not let morality get in
the way of a good heist. I dare say China will become more socially acceptable
in the political sphere as time goes on, to the extent that - if I may make a
little prediction - the efficiency of single-party power will challenge the merits
of troublesome democracy that we currently cling to, and eventually usurp it.</span><br />
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668525832487699201.post-23335094131043557322015-12-29T20:17:00.002-08:002015-12-29T20:18:28.428-08:00The Social Acceptability List 2015<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">As the New Year approaches, we reflect on a bumper year in the world of social discourse. Here’s a little run down of the movers and shakers in this year’s Social Acceptability List, which is compiled by the Fallen in Public and its patchy memory and is about what politicians, newspapers and netizens went on about and how. What’s in? What’s out? What’s OK? What’s not? Read on to find out...</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In today's edition... </span><i><span style="font-size: medium;">IT'S OUT!</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></i><span style="font-size: large;"> - </span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-large;">Global Warming Denial.</span></span></span></span></div>
</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">Moving down the social acceptability list is global warming
denial. Indeed, the change of the term from climate change “sceptic” to “denier”
is nothing if not a symbol of its removal from social acceptability. As the
evidence and arguments roundly mock UKIP, America’s Republicans, and right-wing
media, their own arguments have shifted from “Does it exist?” to “Are humans
responsible?” When the evidence shoots them down on that one, they point out
that China and India aren’t doing anything about it, so why should we? Each
defeat in the argument leads to another phoney point, another goalpost move, leaving
observers to conclude that these ‘sceptics’ are no more than reactionary idiots
who can’t accept that they were wrong. But don’t expect them to lower their
arms too soon; rather, as the debate shifts we can expect new villains in the
deniers’ crosshairs: aliens, sheep, the unemployed...</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">A few days ago, I heard a UKIP woman on Radio 4’s </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">Any Questions</span></i><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;"> begin her spiel with
“Well... the climate’s always changed, the question is whether it’s human
involvement that’s causing it now.” The groans from the audience let out a
huge, collective “Get over it!” The same response, though slightly more muted,
greeted the </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">Daily Mail</span></i><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;"> cartoonist,
Quentin Letts, on </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">Question Time</span></i><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">. A
lot of the support of narrow-minded parties and newspapers depends on
convincing their listeners that these ‘new-fangled fads’, like social media,
craft beers or, indeed, global warming are nonsense. “In my day all you needed
was a packet of Chum Chum Goodies Gums in your back pocket, and I doff me hat
to the postman and off we trot!”</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">But the Earth is round, the holocaust really happened, and
global warming is real – get over it. So, while the climate summit’s been going
on in Paris recently, deniers have been far less vocal than in the past. Global
warming denial, henceforth, is on its way out.</span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668525832487699201.post-79587431506921832842015-12-24T19:17:00.001-08:002015-12-24T19:18:34.239-08:00The Social Acceptability List 2015<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">As the New Year approaches, we reflect on a bumper year in the world of social discourse. Here’s a little run down of the movers and shakers in this year’s Social Acceptability List, which is compiled by the Fallen in Public and its patchy memory and is about what politicians, newspapers and netizens went on about and how. What’s in? What’s out? What’s OK? What’s not? Read on to find out...</span></span></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">In today's edition... </span><i><span style="font-size: large;">IT'S OUT!</span><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></i><span style="font-size: x-large;"> - </span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Privilege</span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium;">
</span></span></span></span><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium;">
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Like a stain on the lapel of an
expensive suit, privilege is being shunned like no tomorrow. There is nothing
worse than being privileged now; indeed, the privileged are just about the most
underprivileged people around, the poor buggers. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Privilege, in the dictionary,
means a right or benefit given to some people and not others. In the world of
the commentariat, privilege was, until recently, a word saved for those of the
Bullingdon Club, the Oxbridge or Ivy League elite. There was also the
underprivileged, those stuck on their estates, unable to enjoy social mobility.
Then there was everyone in between. But that left those in between apparently
unaware of their own privileges, and able to talk about their own problems
without reference to those with bigger problems. Now, with some tinkering with
the definition in feminist discourse, privilege has morphed into something of a
currency. You have more or less of the stuff; there are nation, gender, race or
class forms of it. You can collect them all! But you can’t trade because it’s
inherent to who you are. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">And that’s a problem because if
you’re privileged but don’t recognise it, you’re at fault. Hence, if you don’t
read the latest cultural theory, or use Twitter, or read Buzzfeed, or follow
memes, and you don’t know the term White Privilege (for example) then yes,
sorry, you’re part of the problem.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">But I’m here to alleviate your
guilt by informing you of your privilege. Let’s take Whiteness for an example.
White privilege manifests in the favourable treatment white folk (in our
western societies) get with the police, at schools, at interviews, and so on,
and the deeper rooted cultural expectations of beauty and other things like who
is committing terrorism. It means that when shit goes bad for white people,
their race isn’t the reason; instead, it’s their own stupid fault, which is
comforting. As a sociological concept, it’s broader than any one person; it’s
an overview which attempts to consolidate statistics and social phenomena about
pay and crime and whatnot. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">But it’s not just whites. Are you
able-bodied? Then you’re privileged. Heterosexual? Privileged. Middle class?
Privileged. Male? Privileged. Do you subscribe to the gender that you were
assigned at birth? Privileged. If you’re a middle-class male graduate student,
but you’re gay and lost a leg in a terrible accident, you might come out
neutral. Like Top Trumps, you can play against your friend to see who is more
privileged, but you won’t be friends for long, because this privilege stuff
really riles people up.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Have no doubt that privilege is a
disparaging term. This is nothing new – the underprivileged have always taken a
pop at the privileged in our society, especially so in the underdog culture
that we have in the UK. But a new venom has hit the scene, a new haughty venom,
as the term has gained new meaning. Most of those who are keen on the
white/male privilege label seem to be well-educated, white (and often men) and
spend most of their time explaining to the less enlightened whites out there
why the label makes sense, and why the allegedly privileged are at ‘fault’ for
not acknowledging it. Those who write with authority on the matter have the
privilege of having a voice that people listen to, and sometimes a paycheck at
the end of it. Buzzfeed and Huffpost journalists often claim to have had some
kind of spiritual awakening where they noticed finally how privileged they are,
and have a newfound sense of pity for non-privileged people, on whose behalf
they now talk. YouTube videos showing social saints explaining their own
awakening are often highly attractive, articulate and confident. Their
Christ-like quest is simply to let their readers know how privileged they are,
but don’t worry, you’re not being asked to give it up; just to accept it, be
humbled. Those on Twitter who pick up the term and run with it are often more
crass, and online bickering ensues, leading to death threats. Good work,
people. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">I can’t be the only one to notice
the irony of the privilege of those given the authority to talk about
privilege. And I’m not - indeed, writers who write about privilege often write
about their own privilege, making the whole article wonderfully self-involved.
At the level of discourse, the privilege debate reaffirms whites on the top of
the pile, providing another delicious irony. It doesn’t just recognise imbalances;
it reinforces them and then adds a dash of moral superiority. It works thus: White,
heteronormative, patriarchal, Western cultural expectations frame the debate,
and the “unprivileged” are pitied for not being able to join in, like orphans
or the endangered pandas of Western China. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Pity is most inert of emotions. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">But there is action! “Check your
privilege” is something that you are encouraged to do by social justice
warriors, who spend saving the world one blog post at a time. It comes from the
idea that you can work out how privileged you are by doing a checklist. Am I
white? Now, let me just check that... Yes, I am. And so on. If you say
something that belies your ignorance about social injustice, such as “So many
people doing Christmas shopping in ASDA tonight, it was crazy!” then your more
thoughtful, less ignorant friend should patiently and gently remind you that
the term ‘crazy’ is a disparaging term towards those with mental illness, and
could well trigger a bout of sadness. If appropriate, then he or she (or
neither) might then explain to you their own experiences with depression before
concluding by telling you to ‘check your privilege’.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">It’s a great example of how to
conduct an enterprise of social transformation, while alienating the largest
proportions of it. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">In conclusion I’d like to turn our
attention to some of the more insidious forms of privilege which no one has
seemed to notice, but which are tearing our society apart. I think they are self-explanatory.
These are non-ginger privilege, south-facing privilege, live-by-the-seaside privilege,
average height privilege, car privilege, bike privilege, higher than minimum
wage privilege, no student loan privilege, mobile phone privilege, smart phone
privilege, 20-20 vision privilege, sibling privilege, free from halitosis privilege,
skinny privilege, drug free privilege, cheap drugs privilege, no allergy privilege,
wifi privilege, and live-near-a-Tesco-Express privilege.</span><br />
<br />
---------------------------p.s.</div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Many articles about privilege are irritatingly
self-indulgent. See here for a more refreshing one about the history of the
term in feminist literature, and it’s evolution as an internet phenomenon. </span><a href="http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/check-your-privilege"><span style="font-size: large;">http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/check-your-privilege</span></a><span style="font-size: large;">
</span></div>
</span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668525832487699201.post-69046811257523739332015-12-23T02:49:00.000-08:002015-12-23T02:51:35.507-08:00The Social Acceptability List 2015<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">As Christmas approaches, we reflect on a bumper year in the world of social discourse. Here’s a little run down of the movers and shakers in this year’s Social Acceptability List, which is compiled by the Fallen in Public and its patchy memory and is about what politicians, newspapers and netizens went on about and how. What’s in? What’s out? What’s OK? What’s not? Read on to find out...</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">In today's edition... </span><i><span style="font-size: large;">IT'S IN! </span></i><span style="font-size: large;"> - </span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">Voting out the Box!</span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Across the UK, US and Europe, the left/right divisions are
falling apart and small, sometimes esoteric, parties are finding their support
base shoot up. What’s the reason for this? Well, rolling news informs us
immediately of any tragic event which occurs anywhere, painting a picture of a
world in the throes of disintegration; social media gives us the opportunity to
react in soundbites and little more, which makes simple solutions seem
reasonable; the political establishment’s acceptance of neoliberal capitalism
has led to resentment over a lack of choice and growing inequality. At to that
the fact that they’re all boring – those politicians – really not what we’ve come to expect from
people on TV.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Hence the rise of the charismatic, fumblingly entertaining
dingbat. Boris Johnson was an early version of this new political lifeform,
amusing enough to be on </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Have I Got News
For You.</span></i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Nigel Farage struck a chord by drinking pints when journalists
were there. Those watching the evening news were able to look at that pint,
then look down at the pint in their hands, then look back at the pint on the TV,
and slowly, like a rusty cog finally slipping in to place, conclude: My God!
He’s a bloke! All sorts of phantasmagorical deductions could thus be inferred
about the righteousness of his policies.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Boris won the mayor prize and Farage has had some good
election results here and there, but the Out of the Box Politician Version 2.0
is a more recent phenomenon, and it’s been catapulted right into the
mainstream, partly as the dramatic, fairy tale ascendency of Jeremy Corbyn. </span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Labour gave people the opportunity to join the party on the
cheap, and when they joined they brought their democratic voice. It was a voice
for Corbyn, the conscientious backbencher more at home on the picket or in the
protest than at the dispatch box. There’s been a severe media backlash, and the
polling suggests support for Corbyn is low, but if people want a “New Type of
Politics” – and these cynical bastards who hate politicians should! – it’s out
there.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">The next box-circulating politician to have recent gains is
the Front Nationale’s Marine Le Pen, who has even wheeled out her brainwashed
daughter to put a fresher face on the brand. Indeed, the Pens get prettier with
every generation, and the party’s founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, is so ugly that
he’s been in Le penalty box since earlier this year. The Front Nationale
capitalised on the recent bombings in France and did well in the 1</span><sup><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">st</span></sup><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">
round of regional elections, but the French saw more sense in round 2. </span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Elsewhere in Europe, fear and austerity has produced a
Christmas hamper of political choice. Greece voted in the anti-austerity
Syriza, and the Spanish election showcased to new parties, including Syriza’s
political brethren Podemos, who did well enough to share power. On the British
left you have pro-independence and anti-austerity parties of Scotland and
Wales, and the ever-present-but-going nowhere voice of the Greens. At the other
end of the spectrum we’ve seen the expansion of the English Defence League and
Germany’s Pegida. These groups shroud themselves in the colours of patriotism
in a lazy attempt to come across as something less than racist, but fail. </span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Whatever their political lean, a common trend is the loss of
political slickness that goes with ‘centrists’ trying to appeal to the
mainstream. The recent traditions of highly funded political campaigns, of spin
and double-speak, are losing ground to a new bluntness, a man-in-the-pub
vocabulary, and the use of social media to get the message across. The
mainstream is splintered, and entropy is setting in.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Of course, the crowning achievement of the out-of-the-box
mentality which has become socially acceptable in our wretched age is, of
course, the Buffoon himself. He’s half man, half ape, and half asleep. He’s got
the body of a man, but the mind of a foetus. True, he isn’t really socially
acceptable in the UK, and perhaps not in the USA, but he is a Republican
candidate, and the leading candidate at that. In many ways he is the True
Republican, the spirit of the Republican Party melted down, purified and
chiselled into a rich, male, blond ogre. He has, in the UK, his female
accomplice – TV personality Katie Hopkins – who gets wheeled out on morning TV
because audiences love to watch people they hate. Recently, a petition has
sought to ban him from the UK for fear that he and Hopkins might spawn.</span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668525832487699201.post-2143214666312163392015-12-21T21:14:00.001-08:002015-12-21T21:14:13.695-08:00Social Acceptability List 2015
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">As Christmas approaches, we reflect on a bumper year in the world of social discourse. Here’s a little run down of the movers and shakers in this year’s Social Acceptability List, which is compiled by the Fallen in Public and its patchy memory and is about what politicians, newspapers and netizens went on about and how. What’s in? What’s out? What’s OK? What’s not? Read on to find out...</span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In today's edition... <i>IT'S IN! </i> - </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-large;">War!</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">War never really goes away, but it’s back in a fresh new
suit and on the rampage. Bush’s self-prophesising War on Terror is reaching its
golden era, and the entire UN have come together to wage it. Everyone is
against Deash – even other jihadi groups. That much is agreed on. After that it
gets hazy. The USA, Turkey and France hate Assad, who hates them back. But both
of them hate Daesh more. Assad’s friends, Russia and Iran, hate Turkey and the
West, probably more than Daesh, but they’re trying to play nice. The Saudis
want to destroy Assad because he’s the wrong type of Muslim. They’re ambiguous
on Daesh and possibly have income streams going to them. But America really
likes the Saudis, who can do no wrong in their eyes. The stateless Kurds are
hated by Turkey for being separatists and by Assad for being effective
fighters, and hence also Russia; but they are friends of the West, even though
they occasionally kill them in friendly fire. Israel, that lightning rod of
regional tension, is quietly hating everyone, and hoping they destroy each
other.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It's like a Christmas dinner where that recently released paedo uncle has shown up unexpectedly, and everyone has different ideas about how to get him to leave. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Into this maelstrom the UK have proudly plodded, promising
rather vacantly to play its part. When your justification for going to war
becomes little more than an analogy of helping your friend when he falls in a
puddle, you can pretty much guess that no one’s got a clue what’s going on.
Cameron might see it has a part of his legacy – war worked for Thatcher, after
all; but those isolated wars of the past are no more. Daesh have instilled such
fear, and it’s been duly disseminated by a loyal media, so war is back, and
don’t expect it to go anywhere.</span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668525832487699201.post-77516473596634484452015-12-17T19:55:00.000-08:002015-12-17T19:55:05.239-08:00Social Acceptability List 2015
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">As Christmas approaches, we reflect on a bumper year in the world of social discourse. Here’s
a little run down of the movers and shakers in this year’s Social Acceptability
List, which is compiled by the Fallen in Public and its patchy memory and is about what politicians,
newspapers and netizens went on about and how. What’s in? What’s out? What’s
OK? What’s not? Read on to find out...</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In today's edition...<i> IT’S IN!</i> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Islamophobia</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s been a good year for the adherents of Islamophobia.
Islamist fascists have made great strides in convincing the west that they are
the true voice of Islam, even while failing to convince ordinary Muslims, and
often killing them instead. There’s been wrangling over terminology – the
refugee/migrant palaver, the Daesh, Isis, Isil, IS conundrum. Anyone who seeks
to remove the Islamic flavour from the word is deemed to be simply politically correct
by those who’d prefer to associate Islam with violence. And the people,
especially those reading the </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mail</span></i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">,
the </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sun</span></i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> and the </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Express</span></i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, are lapping it up.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Since 9/11 Muslims have been battered like the proverbial
piñata, and yet for all the nasty rhetoric, terrorism in the name of Islam
hasn’t stopped. It turns out that hurling abuse at a group doesn’t stop the
violently inclined members stop being violet. The same could be said for bombs.
You might say, it simply causes and entrenches division... but I’ll leave that
type of conclusion to the strategists, who seem to have the situation under
control.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This year in London we’ve had a black woman racially abusing
a Muslim woman on the bus. I mention that the abuse hurler was black because,
as a group, black people have also had a hard time of it and often still do.
Irony, anyone? In other news, an old man on the platform in
the Underground recently tried to push a Muslim woman under a train.
Thankfully, he was as weak of body as he is of mind, and couldn’t muster up the
strength. Politically-motivated, violent or abusive retaliations towards
Muslims isn’t deemed to be terrorism, but rather the wanton acts of mad people.
Terrorism </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">per se</span></i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> is literally, </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">glaringly</span></i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, a label saved for the bearded
or veiled Arab type.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Commentators have, for a number of years, taken shots at
Muslims. Richard Dawkins is one of the most notorious, and readily gets a
torrent of abuse redirected at him. Dawkins’ problem is with religion itself,
fair enough, but the targets he chooses come across as deliberately
inflammatory. Recently he compared the number of Nobel prizes which have gone
to Trinity College Cambridge with that of the entire Muslim world; more
recently he’s been gleefully picking apart the claims of the Muslim bomb-clock
kid in the US. Dawkins is a clever man who doesn’t want to cause offence, but
doesn’t care if he does. His followers, however, are not clever; they’re
ordinary people who simply hear ‘Muslims are bad’.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just in time for Christmas, the big D, Trumpman, the Donald
himself, has decided that closing the border to Muslims, all of ‘em, will
provide some kind of solution to the threat of - wait for it – <i>terror</i>. This is so barmy that
few opponents even bother argue against it – they respond with platitudes about
it being against American principles, or how Trump is a joke or a fascist.
Cameron said it was simply quote-unquote “wrong”. But while people are always hearing
about things that are simply wrong, Trump proposes a tangible thing – a wall!
For those with fewer brain cells than spouses, it’s genius! </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In China, where I live, islamophobia is practically built-in,
partly due to the political issues in the Muslim province of Xinjiang. As with
a number of political disputes around the world, some of the Uighur have
responded to Beijing’s repression with violence. The result, combined with
rolling world news and its obsession with Islamic terrorism, has become the
mantra that ‘Muslims are violent’. Some westerners I have met here, who are not
recipients of Beijing’s propaganda and should know better, are also islamophobic, claiming that “Muslims
are bad” is somehow self-evident. </span></div>
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are of course the defenders. There are
those who hurl abuse back at the bigots; there are those who go to help
refugees in Calais or make them feel welcome in the UK; there are those that
argue that alienating the group </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">en masse </span></i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">will
only make the situation work. We hear less about these folk, but we do hear some. And why?
Because people being nice to Muslims is </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">newsworthy.</span></i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
It’s the other side of the coin, the proof that Islamophibia has hit the
mainstream.</span></span><b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668525832487699201.post-14876508532795517222015-12-16T02:53:00.000-08:002016-01-10T21:54:39.800-08:00Scourge of the Trail, Part V<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><a href="http://fallinginpublic.blogspot.com/2015/11/scourge-of-trail.html" target="_blank">Previously on </a><i><a href="http://fallinginpublic.blogspot.com/2015/11/scourge-of-trail.html" target="_blank">The Scourge</a></i><a href="http://fallinginpublic.blogspot.com/2015/11/scourge-of-trail.html" target="_blank"> (link to part 1).</a></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Part 5: Dick Whittingtons in Reverse.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">With haste we rose and
pushed the lingering few items into our backpacks, and Dave offering a groan
under the weight which provided a kind of departing toast. My bag, by comparison,
was featherlight: I had painstakingly removed anything which wasn’t essential,
and was still thinking of shaving a few bristles off my toothbrush to save even
more weight. I foresaw an afternoon of pleasant greenery, blue skies and
trickling creeks, ruined by the unbearable, Sisyphean load on my back. I was
having none of it. My wilderness was going to be an unspoiled, Wordsworthian
Babylon.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">We had a few errands to run
before our midday train to the north. Principally, I wanted a new t-shirt or
two. I had grown envious of two of Dave’s t-shirts, a pair of Merino wool
beauties which, supposedly, dried superfast. This was precisely the type of
thing that should be in my pack. Down Kensington High Street we found ample
hiking shops and even ampler prices. Eventually I picked up some cleverly
scientific-sounding boxer shorts at Uni-qlo and left it at that.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Our train departed Euston at
1pm. The sun was high and beautiful and we arrived in early, so we ate a
sandwich in the seated area just outside. Dave had recently become vegetarian,
I discovered, and I wondered how this would affect the meals I was hoping he
would make for me. I crossed bacon sandwiches off the list and shot a glare at
Dave, but said nothing. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">As we sat there, musing
about what to expect on the walk, a young woman in a fur coat sat beside us. We
were also sharing the table with a middle-aged, bearded, scruffy man. The lady
in the coat, which looked freshly plucked from the back of an artic wolf,
expressed such disgust at the man that it would have hurt deeply, had he not
been drunk enough to be oblivious to her.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">We’d have to average 15
miles a day, Dave told me, peering into the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Coast
to Coast</i> book, but some days would be long and some short. Starting in the
west meant that we’d be hitting the grand Lake District first, and it would be
downhill from there in every way.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“You’re really selling it,”
I told him.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“It might not be so pretty,
but after the heights of the Lake District, it might be nice to be on flatter
ground.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Especially with that pack
you’ve got,” I told him. I’d been reminding Dave regularly how overpacked he
was, but I knew that it was really only to disguise my own anxiety at being
underpacked. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“When it’s on, it’s OK,” he
said, looking down at the bulbous lump of possessions he had sat beside him.
It’s quite a sensation to know that everything you have to live on, to live by,
is in a bag next to you, and wherever to go next, you can leave nothing behind
but that which you will leave forever. It’s a strange mix of freedom and
constraint, to leave everything but the essentials. For someone who experiences
his anxiety with the potency of a chili pepper, it leads to a severe amount of
head-scratching – how and what to live on? I have a weakness when it comes to
making decisions, when the infinite ramifications of the multiverse seem to
appear before me like phantom futures.* But, sitting there next to Miss Posh and Mr
Scruff, and my very own Dave, I was content. We felt like a couple of Dick Whittingtons
in reverse, leaving the gold-paved streets of London to find a quainter, more
idyllic world.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Do you think we’ll be more
or less wrecked than this guy?” I said referring to the drunk at the end of the
table.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“About the same, I’m
hoping,” Dave said. “But you’ll have to start drinking again.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial Narrow",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“No chance,” I said. “I’m
taking the sober route to the gutter.”</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
*The tiny torch, for example, is a good space saver. But it has one of those special batteries that go in watches. If the battery runs out, can I replace it on the trail or will I end up buying a new torch? Then what do I do with the old torch? Just dump it somewhere? If not, I’ll be carrying around two torches; then I’m no better than Dave. Or... I could steal one of Dave’s “landing light” halogen bulbs, or rely on moonlight, or ensure I always position things in the tent in an organised, memorable way and proclude the need for a torch at all... Just recollecting this train of thought is turning me into a spinning top.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://fallinginpublic.blogspot.com/2016/01/scourge-of-trail-part-6.html" target="_blank">Take me to Part 6. </a></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668525832487699201.post-58596205370842552302015-12-03T21:45:00.000-08:002015-12-16T02:55:07.837-08:00The Scourge Part IV<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><i>Previously on The Scourge... </i><a href="http://fallinginpublic.blogspot.com/2015/11/scourge-of-trail.html" target="_blank">Link to Part 1</a></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><b>Part IV: Pepys Road, London.</b></span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Alfred Wainright, spiritual father of the Coast
to Coast walk, wrote “</span></span><span style="font-family: "calibri";">I want to encourage in others the ambition to
devise with the aid of maps their own cross-country marathons and not be merely
followers of other people's routes: there is no end to the possibilities for
originality and initiative.” With this in mind, we decided to merely follow
Wainright’s route. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">I had suggested walking
east to west, following the sun, but Dave rightly pointed out that I was being
an idiot. Going east, he said, laying out his case, means that you walk towards
the sun in the morning, and have it on your back as the afternoon draws on. It
also means that we can follow the book, </span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Henry Steadman’s map-cum-guidebook </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Coast
to Coast Path</span></i><span style="font-family: "calibri";">, to the letter. I realised I had developed a rather naïve
sense of what trekking was to be like – just go forward in the direction you
want. It hadn’t really occurred to me that trees, rivers, fences or cows might
get in the way. </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">At Dave’s house, on the eve of the Big Walk, we
took inventory and spread out our things. Dave’s backpack was roughly twice the
size of mine, as was his tent. I had bought a one-man tent which was little
bigger than a Smarties tube; Dave had a mansion.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">“That’s heavy,” I said. “You’re going to regret
it, mark my words.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">“When I’m stretched out diagonally in my tent –
my Taj Mahal – enjoying a spacious and peaceful night’s rest, you’ll be the one
who’s regretting it. I might put a small bar in the corner with a selection of
scotches, so I can read my books with a pleasant tipple.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">The bar idea may have been a slight exaggeration,
but Dave hadn’t scrimped. He really hadn’t. I examined his procurements which
were now spread over the floor (a result of not being able to get them all in
the bag): apart from the massive tent, a chunky sleeping bag and a yoga mat to
sleep on, he had three books, a variety of wardrobe changes, two gas canisters,
plenty of plates and cutlery, a flask, two mugs, a torch that one could use to
beat an intruder of the night, an axe, an penknife, and four flat halogen
lights.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">“We’re not helping planes land,” I said, looking
at the lights. </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">He paused. “I’ll leave one of the lights.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">The evening passed in this fashion – me telling
Dave he had too much stuff and was going to regret it, and him finally
accepting this argument and leaving something. I managed to convince him to
leave the </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Tibetan Book of the Dead</span></i><span style="font-family: "calibri";">,
but he wouldn’t budge on </span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Rashomon</span></span></i><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, nor
the </span></span><i><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Saga of Gunnlaugr Serpent-Tongue</span></span></i><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">,
a 13</span><sup><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> century Icelandic epic.</span><i><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span></i><span style="font-family: "calibri";">These were, Dave insisted,
vital for taking our minds, as well as our bodies, truly into the wilderness.</span></span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Each item was a battle, and we would never have
gotten through it if we hadn’t had the aid of some decent single malt scotch. After
this evening, I had told Dave, I wouldn’t drink for the entire journey. He eyed
me with suspicion when I said this. </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">With our packs loaded, we went to bed. Dave, to the
last night with his partner Cinthya; me, to the first night in a superlite
sleeping bag, on a sofa. Superlite, I quickly realised, also meant superthin
and supercold. </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">If I am cold in this
sleeping bag in a flat in London, then what about when...</span></i><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> I pushed out the
doubts. Tents are, like... insulated with body warmth, or something... I was
sure it would be fine. </span></span><br />
<br />
<i><a href="http://fallinginpublic.blogspot.com/2015/12/scourge-of-trail-part-v.html" target="_blank">Take me to part 5.</a></i></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668525832487699201.post-79691334971676800172015-11-29T17:57:00.004-08:002015-12-03T21:50:16.673-08:00Scourge of the Trail: P3<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "leelawadee ui semilight" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><i><a href="http://fallinginpublic.blogspot.com/2015/11/scourge-of-trail.html" target="_blank">Previously on The Scourge (link to part I)</a></i></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "leelawadee ui semilight" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "leelawadee ui semilight" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><b>Part 3: When the Planning of the Doing of it </b><i><b>Still</b></i><b> Takes Longer than the Doing
of the Doing of it.</b></span></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "leelawadee ui semilight" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Walking. Yeah, I know about that. I’ve done it before. Even since the Coast
to Coast I’ve walked from time to time. I even did a little before breakfast
today. However, in the week leading up to the Big Walk, as I’m going to call
mine and Dave’s Coast to Coast walk from now on, I decided to put my walking
into practice by walking a bit further than I usually would. The first walk
involved a Mr. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyDquisjVDei4SgZFqy7BVA" target="_blank">Marc-e-b</a> and a Mr. Mike Todd, and we walked from New Milton to
Brockenhurst, taking an unneeded and tiring detour on the way back, to the tune
of 20 miles. We finished at the Kebab House, in an attempt to undo all the
health we can accumulated, whereupon I bought a massive doner kebab I called my
mum to come pick me up. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "leelawadee ui semilight" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The combination of walking and kebab caused very different pains in very
different places, but provided a good test for the Big Walk. With the promise of
averaging 15 miles a day, it seemed very doable. Even better, as we all
noticed, the next day the muscles were positively fresh and only the lingering
heaviness of doner meat remained. Eat healthy, walk healthy, I promised myself.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "leelawadee ui semilight" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Mike and I also walked the coast from New Milton to Lymington. It pelted
with rain, providing a good test for my bag and coat (which were not adequately
protected) and took us past the wonderful low marshlands which sit beside the Solent.
On this occasion, we set something of a precedent: after a quick and mighty
start, we stopped off for a coffee, feeling very good about ourselves and sure
to plod on gallantly to the finish line. Sadly, we were only about 10% of the
way through and we’d already had our break. When you reach the 12 mile mark or
thereabouts, you can’t help but curse the fool you were when you breaked so
early.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "leelawadee ui semilight" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">In Lymington we went into the camping and hiking store Millets where I
bought a few items: a tiny torch which you can wrap around your head,
waterproof trousers, a tiny pillow and tiny ‘quickdry’ towel, and first aid
items. Dave was going to sort out eating equipment. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "leelawadee ui semilight" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">“Gonna need that if it’s a day like this,” said the Millets Man. He’d
cleverly made the connection between the waterproof trousers and the deepening
rainstorm outside. “You couldn’t be more right,” I said. “We’re walking back to
New Milton.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "leelawadee ui semilight" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">“You’re what?” he said, astonished. Unlike you, reader, this Millets Man of
Lymington knew exactly where New Milton was, for New Milton is Lymington’s
scummier, unruly brother. Whereas Lymington is the proud home of the likes of
teenage piano cover queen Birdy, New Milton is the proud home of machete-wielding
townies. A few years ago, I came back from living in South East London, with
all its gangs and big-city perils, only to find myself in a pub brawl outside
New Milton’s Rydal. Millets Man thus he knew that it was some distance, and was
surely wondering why anyone would go to New Milton, even on a sunny day, even
in a car. “You’re walking to New Milton, like, now?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "leelawadee ui semilight" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">“We’ve just come from New Milton,” said Mike, evidently feeling a bit
manly. “Gotta get back somehow.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "leelawadee ui semilight" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">“Blimey,” he said. For a man who worked in a hiking and camping shop, he
was surprisingly surprised to come across walkers. His astonishment only
deepened when I told him I was going to walk the Coast to Coast. I had
suspicions that this man was not a real walker at all, but simply a mere
retailer.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "leelawadee ui semilight" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">I had bought a tent, also from Millets, but online. It turned out, later (when
emailing them from a pub as my ripped tent dripped rain in the garden) that I
hadn’t bought it from Millets, but from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Millet
Sports</i>. The latter is a sports store, also trading in Millets-type
equipment, but at a lower quality if the frozen moisture in my nostrils was
anything to go by.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "leelawadee ui semilight" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">After these walks I felt positively sturdy, somewhere between Conan the
Barbarian and a gorilla. I had some Keen hiking boots which I had spent hours
deliberating over, reading reviews and whatnot, before buying them from Taobao.
Taobao is China’s Ebay, and a haven of cheap shit. It was a risk, but my Keens
were great! And they continue to be so. With all my stuff stuffed into a
smallish Oakley backpack bought from the Fake Market in Shanghai, I was ready
to go.</span><br />
<br />
<i><a href="http://fallinginpublic.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-scourge-part-iv.html" target="_blank">Take me to Part 4</a></i></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668525832487699201.post-70404924552331416532015-11-27T23:44:00.000-08:002015-11-29T18:01:15.401-08:00Scourge of the Trail: P2<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<i><a href="http://fallinginpublic.blogspot.com/2015/11/scourge-of-trail.html" target="_blank">Previously on The Scourge (link to part 1)</a></i><br />
<i></i><br /></div>
<b>Part II: When the Planning of the Doing of it Takes Longer than the Doing of the Doing of it.</b><br />
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">These days, you can’t just wander out your door
with a copy of Wainright, jump on the 18:05 to St. Bees, throw a shilling at
the guard and go hiking. The world got all complicated and micro-managed.
Trains in the UK are extortionate – the result of a clever ploy to get UK
citizens to buy more cars and engage in more road rage. To avoid these costs,
the savvier traveller uses a new-fangled gizmo called the Internet. The
Internet, also known as the web, the net, or, amongst particularly cool
individuals, the </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">interweb,</span></i><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> is pumped
into everyone’s houses through pipes and allows people to operate on a newly
unrestrained level. Protest, shopping, bullying and, most enthusiastically,
sex, have all gone online and not even the fact that the governments of the
world are watching us can stop us behaving like absolutely disgusting morons.
Take me, for example, with thirteen windows open, including National Rail, the
Trainline and six different Megabus windows. Disgusting.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Once upon a time, the Trainline.com was cheaper
than a normal ticket. Now, it’s the same. Am I wrong? Once, you could get a Megatrain
ticket for £1. Now it’s £15 at the cheapest unless you want to alight at a
station which is underwater or in a volcano. When you’re nostalgic for good
train prices which were available only one year ago you know the world has
become too rapid and too boring, but there I was, fond memories of £1 rides in
my head, cursing at the screen. </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">The number of websites which profess to offer
cheap train tickets are now more numerous than the number of straggly beards in
East London. Megatrain tickets only go to certain destinations, and you </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">have to </span></i><span style="font-family: "calibri";">get off at that destination. You
also need to get the specific train, at the specific time. Hence, if you have
the time and the will, you can plan a complex, labyrinthian journey across the
country, making smart connections at tiny prices until you get to the end of
your rainbow. </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">But only on specific
trains.</span></i><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> Each successful journey would depend on the reliability of the
previous ones, and that’s a lot of faith to have in British transport. Do you
really have what it takes to withstand that kind of pressure for a whole day?
With my anxiety the way it is, with the 13 windows on the computer screen
jostling for attention, I knew I couldn’t do it.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">So, I bought two tickets, one for Dave and one
for myself, from London to St. Bees, and two more tickets, one for Dave and one
for myself, from Robin Hood’s Bay to London two weeks later. The return tickets
presumed that both of us would still be alive for the return journey. I
considered reading the terms and conditions to see if I could get a refund on
Dave’s ticket if I were to murder him in his sleep, but terms and conditions
are impenetrable, as you know, so I figured I’d just worry about that if and
when the situation arises. </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">The date of the return ticket was of paramount
importance because the following day I would be taking a train to Brussels </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">en route</span></i><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> to Japan. These tickets I had
planned, with equal frustration, with the aid of seat61.com, an excellent if
geeky website dedicated to all things train. If you want to know if there is a working
soap dispenser in the toilet in car E on the eastbound 15:45 train from Paris
to Strasbourg, Seat61 can tell you.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Needless to say, taking trains across land to China
takes you through a number of countries. As an EU citizen, travelling through
Europe is blissfully easy. But after that, you have Belarus, Russia, Mongolia
and China to deal with. Already working in China, I was sorted for entry there;
Mongolia doesn’t require visas which is lovely, and neither does Japan if
you’re British, which is also splendid; but Belarus and Russia were another
story. To get these visas I had to send my passport to each embassy, and get
them returned to me. This is usually not a problem, but then again, usually I’m
not walking across the north of England like a ragged, hungry hobo. </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">“Get it sent to my house,” said my mum, “and I’ll
send it on to you.” Good old mum. But, hang on, that won’t work. I’ve got to
get my first train </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">the day after </span></i><span style="font-family: "calibri";">the
walk ends. It’ll never arrive in time! “Get it sent to my house,” said Dave
“and it’ll be waiting for us when we get back.” Good old Dave. That’s a man
with a plan. Dave lives in London, less than four miles (and three hours by
public transport) from St. Pancras, gateway to Europe. </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">I dropped my passport off at the Belarussian
embassy, having already secured the Russian visa. “Send it to Dave’s,” I waved.
It all seemed so easy. </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Too easy</span></i><span style="font-family: "calibri";">. It
was, and all too late when I realised. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: calibri;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: calibri;"><i><a href="http://fallinginpublic.blogspot.com/2015/11/scourge-of-trail-p3.html" target="_blank">Take me to part III</a></i></span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668525832487699201.post-47732024497193288652015-11-24T02:51:00.000-08:002015-11-29T17:10:41.433-08:00Scourge of the Trail<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Part 1: Proximity</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I suppose I should've known better. After all, it was summertime in England - a wretched time that even the most hardy seaside go-getter can attest to. Perhaps I had been away from home too long, and a cosy fog which suggested warmth had clouded my judgement, and filled my head with the English summer of pub gardens, beach parties and cocktails on the lawn. Pym's. On top of that, I hadn't erected a tent and shivered my way into a sleeping bag in a good fifteen years, and I had long since ceased to remember the discomfort, the sheer depravity of camping in England. More than once did I consider uttering that immortal line, that of the sacrificial Captain Oates - "I'm just going outside and may be some time," in order to save my frozen friend, Dave, from certain doom. I'm sure he thought the same thing. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Our mutual friend, the generally-more-reluctant <a href="https://banalmuffins.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Chris</a>, had declined to join us, citing an absence of hair straighteners and naturally sourced lime and aloe moisturiser on the trail. "There are a thousand better reasons to reject this trip, Chris," I said to him, number 1 being me and number 2 being Dave. Proximity, it could be said, is the greatest test of a person. It has to be delicately handled. If you're stealing oxygen from your neighbour, oftentimes this is too close. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">One tent each, said Dave. That should be enough. Enough to save us from ourselves. <i>Lord of the Flies</i> was flickering across the back of my eyelids, crossed with some twisted version of a weekend getaway on the Goode Life. I pushed the idea of murder (which had now evolved to murder-suicide) from my mind – seriously, the chances of being killed while camping in the English countryside must be tiny, perhaps as high as being killed in a terrorist attack, which, I assure you, is lower than you’d think – and looked over at Dave. His pale brown flop of hair had been recently shawn and he peered through his glasses with an alert keen. His newly shaved head accentuated his neck, somehow increasing the enthusiasm in his eyes. “I’m really looking forward to this,” he said. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">the idea had been raised a few months before, while I was in China. Coast to coast, said Dave, west to east. “it’s Wainright’s walk,” he iterated, “and a woman did it on TV. With a film crew.” A film crew, I pondered. There could be something to this. Just shy of 200 miles, the walk stretches from the sea to the sea, starting at St. Bee’s and ending at Robin Hood’s Bay. Before you ask, we saw no bees at St. Bees and no Robin Hood at Robin Hood’s bay. Alfred Wainright, grumpy countryside wanderer <i>par excellence</i>, did the walk over a number of occasions – not in one go – and wrote about it in 1973. Since then, the trail has been tweaked a little and attracts 10,000 people a year (according to Henry Steadman’s map-cum-guidebook <i>Coast to Coast Path</i>), mostly in summer when the weather is it its shittest, each of whom curse the skies, their friends, and the long-dead Wainright for coming up with the blasted idea in the first place. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">But, as I mentioned just a paragraph ago, I was in China. And I had to return to China because of work. This meant my trip east from St. Bees was going to take on something of a marathon quality far beyond the 192 miles of Wainright’s puny walk. It did, but that’s a story for a later time. Before that, we had planning to do, and as everybody knows – planning is cool and always, always fun.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><a href="http://fallinginpublic.blogspot.com/2015/11/scourge-of-trail-p2.html" target="_blank">Take me to Part II.</a></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668525832487699201.post-34636196413003553632015-08-11T07:53:00.001-07:002015-08-11T07:53:09.661-07:00C2C, the rest.<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg3MTbK25EhPnMe_AEFASIwij9U-OSo6B6kXsnKMe2ip1EmwB3YetygmrTPaPKhqnP5zVinqZNVqlK5MKPUJhGm16c4enhsPVAgGjtpI7pC2ufFytt7TJ8lTcx39i2BN1iOaAisXB6kXMT/s640/blogger-image--97465249.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg3MTbK25EhPnMe_AEFASIwij9U-OSo6B6kXsnKMe2ip1EmwB3YetygmrTPaPKhqnP5zVinqZNVqlK5MKPUJhGm16c4enhsPVAgGjtpI7pC2ufFytt7TJ8lTcx39i2BN1iOaAisXB6kXMT/s640/blogger-image--97465249.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div><br></div>The night in Keld was exhausting. The sunset betrayed a coming chill cold enough to make Captain Oates pack up and march off. And so it was for me. At 1am I realised the worst was still to come. My microlite tent was forming icicles and my ripped tent was letting in a cruel draft. I got out and burst into Dave's tent saying 'I'm coming in.'<div> It's fucking cold in here too, he said, perhaps by way of deterrent. But who cared? A thousand Celtic warriors couldn't have removed me from this tent. </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2wRdbimC2ekmoLr5ygbGz-ita4_KkWENu8FRFt99AZbDkUIN0glSqIN0_6Cfw4Cl2eGL5gd5IZSLutO75sz3e8aZcEs_VHjeiKwDxgdoi3LAFOQa0_p_AgKZyrJEwpktaVDMiLIYQz31j/s640/blogger-image--2047825871.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2wRdbimC2ekmoLr5ygbGz-ita4_KkWENu8FRFt99AZbDkUIN0glSqIN0_6Cfw4Cl2eGL5gd5IZSLutO75sz3e8aZcEs_VHjeiKwDxgdoi3LAFOQa0_p_AgKZyrJEwpktaVDMiLIYQz31j/s640/blogger-image--2047825871.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div>The remainder of the trip was on lower ground. We stayed in a hunting lodge yha and got lost looking for a 'lone oak' in a friend with many lone oaks near Richmond. We lost Ali but found her again at the end. In the meantime out cohort grew to include four oldies from Burnley and a stubborn father and daughter, whom we called Strongarm Sue on account of her dismissing other people's packs as light. She cried her way to Robin Hoods Bay, and we think developed something of a romance with Mark, the ex-hippy brummie. </div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8tKCk0BA8I-h05ubKPfPKl1Nh4WAByialsYobKe5aB0hZOD4CKQM2KaOU8jH3RjmXeLi22T04_9IVMcEW51wnBtM3b4O47yIKkseQ8alxlc-DYFSDBoySBBXKjiV3eJDEtDv_VO6DTsrl/s640/blogger-image--1292087619.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8tKCk0BA8I-h05ubKPfPKl1Nh4WAByialsYobKe5aB0hZOD4CKQM2KaOU8jH3RjmXeLi22T04_9IVMcEW51wnBtM3b4O47yIKkseQ8alxlc-DYFSDBoySBBXKjiV3eJDEtDv_VO6DTsrl/s640/blogger-image--1292087619.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div><br></div><div>We rolled in to the bay spent and ready for a bed and breakfast and a pint. We got both. Next day, we said bye to the north and hi to the <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqQMNDZ41k-YRYN_cnte5HR2c1iyTScg_K0iDu0XxOGunkJjhVd5OnI7RtR0jSRCW0KwI332707IAY058sTYR6mb_QLX_A2T6_RTM_ohgCFy0dt_pV3KRuwiGlUZf-FYUfoofhz8g0aurq/s640/blogger-image--2140923861.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqQMNDZ41k-YRYN_cnte5HR2c1iyTScg_K0iDu0XxOGunkJjhVd5OnI7RtR0jSRCW0KwI332707IAY058sTYR6mb_QLX_A2T6_RTM_ohgCFy0dt_pV3KRuwiGlUZf-FYUfoofhz8g0aurq/s640/blogger-image--2140923861.jpg"></a></div>business of London, where cars took on the form of large indifferent farmyard animals, and people were, god forbid, not walkers. </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJLmA40EHzqfMQMa9VSm-9MmlYMNoPKP6ocFHU-YyAXSY_C7Mslws_iBhEsvhRxIwHFOnGhki4A1PKyLEV5p1qbAQfTfIY9j58NgaNtOM-FxRG5TaVgvxpUHxTSvZwEQ3CFNJ6dif847WV/s640/blogger-image--2143426451.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJLmA40EHzqfMQMa9VSm-9MmlYMNoPKP6ocFHU-YyAXSY_C7Mslws_iBhEsvhRxIwHFOnGhki4A1PKyLEV5p1qbAQfTfIY9j58NgaNtOM-FxRG5TaVgvxpUHxTSvZwEQ3CFNJ6dif847WV/s640/blogger-image--2143426451.jpg"></a></div><br></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668525832487699201.post-9529507865892508322015-08-01T01:42:00.001-07:002015-08-01T01:42:40.807-07:00Day...7?Just got to the tiny hamlet of Keld. Finally left the Lake District. Camping the last few nights is cold! Done 98 miles. <div>A few days back we met Ali, whom we swam in Ennerdale Water with. She's become a regular on this trip, someone to share cookies and green tea and even the occasional political tete-a-tete with. </div><div>Others we see often are an Australian occupational therapist and her mum. The OT glumly told Dave to rest his battered leg, advice he didn't like, but did take. </div><div>Nice sunset tonight. </div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXhQrXOsS41oQv0BOFQhTBN9P3mK3eTgfmh9yYQJhKqV9G2PRFO1TLB_-Es-y7Slta0cortvVNDfOYKOSfuRKNT71ykWETkWmwl90wwpXytZeQ9rX2K4oJklG5FXWy_P9Jx3jkFKlYz2bK/s640/blogger-image-1471714164.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXhQrXOsS41oQv0BOFQhTBN9P3mK3eTgfmh9yYQJhKqV9G2PRFO1TLB_-Es-y7Slta0cortvVNDfOYKOSfuRKNT71ykWETkWmwl90wwpXytZeQ9rX2K4oJklG5FXWy_P9Jx3jkFKlYz2bK/s640/blogger-image-1471714164.jpg"></a></div> </div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT0nGbqwOMkNPlgG17n9l7Cws0jy4v-9LI5K3bfB2xSYsADQPT9Q1lUaYjdi1XoB52Q_wE50F030PVSWIf-RfgmNpNlOyBggarCVOhlnVuXC48YryAMMSF7g9fC1JOPbLdAUcQ-y5XvDAb/s640/blogger-image-1477524546.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT0nGbqwOMkNPlgG17n9l7Cws0jy4v-9LI5K3bfB2xSYsADQPT9Q1lUaYjdi1XoB52Q_wE50F030PVSWIf-RfgmNpNlOyBggarCVOhlnVuXC48YryAMMSF7g9fC1JOPbLdAUcQ-y5XvDAb/s640/blogger-image-1477524546.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_SJxX_nUq75qL0z_QLkhS1HiOfNvlkwem-r3Zpp3ts81FmGua2gBT2C6FIddhg_9KC6NEJHlzi03Vj5Ax3VgBh_915kwbQ4greWnb51ey7uAl21Wp-Ern0GrQLPReZhPFYBKcM7q_gxfn/s640/blogger-image-669924997.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_SJxX_nUq75qL0z_QLkhS1HiOfNvlkwem-r3Zpp3ts81FmGua2gBT2C6FIddhg_9KC6NEJHlzi03Vj5Ax3VgBh_915kwbQ4greWnb51ey7uAl21Wp-Ern0GrQLPReZhPFYBKcM7q_gxfn/s640/blogger-image-669924997.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4fb47nTLGiosomyo319c9hMeXTKHAMqHuyFtQpr1Mt-pyiQ4E0ujl1lsydMmSjNlgNVijboY-GPckh3QRfxot3z54g7bWFHJ0Gm_55mU0D9rOqKBAkzsVgFdblvoa5J9zDANXA7W-ZL8Z/s640/blogger-image-203975012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; 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Done about 40 miles now. In quite a lot of pain. Dave has pulled muscle in his leg. It rained terribly today, and we are in a Youth Hostel tonight, in much needed warmth.<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoNg_YXih6wTaRkaji-8B9YLHDbpu9fzqNWPcvPes0wh-ehdFfI8STrZRqdy6P9UXx91CSsd4mHH9CtbLd5VILQpe6OLenB02-pWG5D91DvOsOnQOzUD4QLKWcqV2DaLAP0rJcMJn8TH9t/s640/blogger-image-1960192764.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoNg_YXih6wTaRkaji-8B9YLHDbpu9fzqNWPcvPes0wh-ehdFfI8STrZRqdy6P9UXx91CSsd4mHH9CtbLd5VILQpe6OLenB02-pWG5D91DvOsOnQOzUD4QLKWcqV2DaLAP0rJcMJn8TH9t/s640/blogger-image-1960192764.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6GyK-eB7pLRS2_qR88aGdxunL2iRz8iIh8PJI9LCBa_viU37iFZ0D5GVpuHMV9S0Mh0rdBFx2Tsn53IxLdw3RZ4bcPDHDV-ChdwKWc-R6W_ZB3rynPJQguTj_pFCqmpE7cjO1VENzNo-Z/s640/blogger-image-571588244.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; 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margin-right: 1em;"></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE5-LJOhNF7DqKvvctEPRuB2ZRUISwl9Z6Pp_lOwF26wzTkTCjg8Tw6MIE01mGNmbDWA2gUvXBV_Ey6ytu8v6Bi4D76faTkrSs6h_DO7gH8EBXvrx4RKWGrUEeUQqpFQnUj6Zos8mLbXz5/s640/blogger-image--490838888.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeDqUjes2CPXJvlTe_JQ6EjN1HICYKS3QrDo4fs2OjfpWbHHe25N_nyVybMrucGpIZcPVqn_Uub8wD1E6UImFrxzHJtmeYv3kpWzgAN8tsN00-B1rpVrjpmWITlTG2HsVrgVA4qiShKwbw/s640/blogger-image--633942146.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeDqUjes2CPXJvlTe_JQ6EjN1HICYKS3QrDo4fs2OjfpWbHHe25N_nyVybMrucGpIZcPVqn_Uub8wD1E6UImFrxzHJtmeYv3kpWzgAN8tsN00-B1rpVrjpmWITlTG2HsVrgVA4qiShKwbw/s640/blogger-image--633942146.jpg"></a></div><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE5-LJOhNF7DqKvvctEPRuB2ZRUISwl9Z6Pp_lOwF26wzTkTCjg8Tw6MIE01mGNmbDWA2gUvXBV_Ey6ytu8v6Bi4D76faTkrSs6h_DO7gH8EBXvrx4RKWGrUEeUQqpFQnUj6Zos8mLbXz5/s640/blogger-image--490838888.jpg"></div>Seems a lot further in than day two... We two travellers are now sturdy and worn hikers with 14 miles behind us. It's not a great feat, you might say, but oh with those bags and down that hill. That hill was Raven Crag , a spot so steep that people complain to the guide book for putting it on the trail. Actually it wasn't on Wainright's original walk, but has since become standard. Your knees shiver and begin to numb, and you continually wonder about sliding down on your bag. <div><br></div><div>Most beautiful part of the walk was just after that descent, on the cusp of the Lake District, through a meandering valley. We met one man and his dog. Having coffee now in the Fox and Hounds, gotta run. </div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlL-l-7ptmDQilFinG_UoVd1Fkr3qbs3Z79fGLQwvun2-vmqrgU4BW-Arg5JoLEuhvWLcH8jxLjnHUWlw6XP7kF4LK_s5d69JhZjvIS9_RuTVu1zgIqP8IxfLddQZ6UwWnh-Hv2CZDw0RG/s640/blogger-image-1900721139.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlL-l-7ptmDQilFinG_UoVd1Fkr3qbs3Z79fGLQwvun2-vmqrgU4BW-Arg5JoLEuhvWLcH8jxLjnHUWlw6XP7kF4LK_s5d69JhZjvIS9_RuTVu1zgIqP8IxfLddQZ6UwWnh-Hv2CZDw0RG/s640/blogger-image-1900721139.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBiwJLqjdNOzBJqj712NfhJgAfLiV1Woc6u4_E1QHqcbtKkmKMIvRs9zuhy2GPXKCHpjVjRNHLtKK_sIDXFU5yuH9ZQg9Wm2zZq2I6kxaL2dbT9Cu6MbDjoqhqnk697AFKOedz_alv0oEh/s640/blogger-image--11295345.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBiwJLqjdNOzBJqj712NfhJgAfLiV1Woc6u4_E1QHqcbtKkmKMIvRs9zuhy2GPXKCHpjVjRNHLtKK_sIDXFU5yuH9ZQg9Wm2zZq2I6kxaL2dbT9Cu6MbDjoqhqnk697AFKOedz_alv0oEh/s640/blogger-image--11295345.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz2eym3EUFcQbwLqQYEW1MzjGvK1r5WHnJWJ2dRqmRMRiI4L0YiNoRByE51Nyug8qIX1odrJ99bpwgRPNW813KYiwide6EqUjgWvGkpJLIMedd0X2X5CPKAqPI93bTjR_OOADHs-lgrUTM/s640/blogger-image-2135650882.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz2eym3EUFcQbwLqQYEW1MzjGvK1r5WHnJWJ2dRqmRMRiI4L0YiNoRByE51Nyug8qIX1odrJ99bpwgRPNW813KYiwide6EqUjgWvGkpJLIMedd0X2X5CPKAqPI93bTjR_OOADHs-lgrUTM/s640/blogger-image-2135650882.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEgddR8LgmaKw6o-sMgVoIsc2OKzYZT364wpsAkpCnVwXMEwfxONDPXsatEIHZIelV274bLlQ_bicmMVZ-PMuUgZpQ2stCgd0nQ61OoFVuxIgE04zb9cPcny8bUISJjqegdTipjtQKywAC/s640/blogger-image-1518468082.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEgddR8LgmaKw6o-sMgVoIsc2OKzYZT364wpsAkpCnVwXMEwfxONDPXsatEIHZIelV274bLlQ_bicmMVZ-PMuUgZpQ2stCgd0nQ61OoFVuxIgE04zb9cPcny8bUISJjqegdTipjtQKywAC/s640/blogger-image-1518468082.jpg"></a></div><br><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_JX5YgOWZjlzu17W7yDgplhj1zC744KyeIhTorqEvZO52pM8QP2hz83QMHE_OK-CAn-JD-4KXSwMV-eOaeHD2mOmaTZyUj-8jK7S5wLAxQ-XeBS_ECAPdt18KuyBW-304qoyRM9Wjd6Qz/s640/blogger-image-1157505048.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_JX5YgOWZjlzu17W7yDgplhj1zC744KyeIhTorqEvZO52pM8QP2hz83QMHE_OK-CAn-JD-4KXSwMV-eOaeHD2mOmaTZyUj-8jK7S5wLAxQ-XeBS_ECAPdt18KuyBW-304qoyRM9Wjd6Qz/s640/blogger-image-1157505048.jpg"></a></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0