If it wasn?t for the eighties there may never have been a HCC, VideoAngels, Celebrity Shags and the rest. What the eighties showed us was that anyone with half a brain could be an entrepreneur, even if you came from a lowly background. Maggie showed us that there was no need to be a cap doffing surf in some dark satanic mill, no one was barred from taking part in capitalism. OK, you might have not had many chips to start playing the game and if you were totally crap you would not get very far anyway. But the important thing that Maggie did give us was the idea that we all could have a go - and by golly we did have a go!
It?s easy to forget have comparatively grim times were pre-Maggie. Ordinary folks just didn?t have any dough and no hope of advancing themselves. We were destined to be wage surfs in some grey-overmanned industrial complex for the rest of our lives. Shades or Orwell and Fritz Lang ? I shudder at the memory. In those days buying a Porsche, drinking Champagne, or going to the Seychelles was some impossible dream that only a Pools win could make real. Now, all these things are within reach of the proletariat, as I and many of my peers could attest ? Hey, don?t get me wrong they don?t give these things away; you have to put some effort into getting them. But the point is you can get them, no one is barred from the game. Whether we perceive it or not we are all hugely wealthier than we were in the 70?s.
There were some good things about the ?bad old days? though. Movies, music, TV and of course porno, all were of a much more higher and satisfying calibre in those days.
Officer Dibble ? tossing himself off down Memory Lane.
British Porn and the Lib Dems
-
Crimpo
Re: o/t the 80s
And we're all vastly better off now than in the 1980s - when half the country was closed down and the workshop of the world decided it'd rather work frying Big Macs.
Some people nowadays forget just how grim and bleak, but thankfully temporary, the 80s and all it entailed really was.
And if anyone publishes a picture of me with a Mullet then I'll send Magoo round to getcha!!
Some people nowadays forget just how grim and bleak, but thankfully temporary, the 80s and all it entailed really was.
And if anyone publishes a picture of me with a Mullet then I'll send Magoo round to getcha!!
-
Crimpo
Re: British Porn and the Lib Dems
Simon Hughes is a genuine "liberal" in many ways but I suspect on this one his "religious" sentiments are restricting him.
There's an old saying - 'scratch a Liberal and you'll find a policeman'.
There's an old saying - 'scratch a Liberal and you'll find a policeman'.
-
Officer Dibble
Re: o/t the 80s
Oh dear Crimpo, I fear your not being objective rational and reasonable in this instance - just spouting old sarcastic sloganeering dogma that you haven't thought about and probably picked up at college.
I don't recall "half the country being closed down" - Yes, there was a Miner's strike but that was soon settled and though many lost their jobs it gave many of them the push they needed to start their own businesses or find their way down other more rewarding career paths that a Barnsley miner in the 70's would ever have dreamt about. Or do you suggest that we should've kept them on in their old jobs paying them producing a product that nobody needs or wants anymore? Because that kind of business practice usually results in bankruptcy.
By the Worksop of the world I presume you mean Blighty? But if that's the case I don't personally know anyone who works, has worked or would like to work frying Big Macs - I certainly wouldn't, I find it much more agreeable being a (mini) capitalist instead. Which is one of the reasons I have never sought a job at McDonalds. I do share you?re scorn of McDonalds but from a culinary and cultural perspective - Anyone who's not a divi can see that they are taking the piss with their burgers. Just try and compare their finest (Big Mac) with a Half Pounder from Burger King. They're not even in the same ballpark! The patronising fuckers think you won?t notice if they lay a daft hat and a balloon on you!
Sorry to hear you found the eighties bleak Crimpo you should?ve come and joined our gang instead of hanging about with all those miserable, earnest, negative student types - we had a much better time tooling about in Mercs, Porches, Rollers, mobile phones clamped to our ears, gorgeous goldigging babes on each arm as we swaggered into the winebar to order the houses finest Krug! Ah, those were the days.
Officer Dibble ? on a nostalgia trip.
I don't recall "half the country being closed down" - Yes, there was a Miner's strike but that was soon settled and though many lost their jobs it gave many of them the push they needed to start their own businesses or find their way down other more rewarding career paths that a Barnsley miner in the 70's would ever have dreamt about. Or do you suggest that we should've kept them on in their old jobs paying them producing a product that nobody needs or wants anymore? Because that kind of business practice usually results in bankruptcy.
By the Worksop of the world I presume you mean Blighty? But if that's the case I don't personally know anyone who works, has worked or would like to work frying Big Macs - I certainly wouldn't, I find it much more agreeable being a (mini) capitalist instead. Which is one of the reasons I have never sought a job at McDonalds. I do share you?re scorn of McDonalds but from a culinary and cultural perspective - Anyone who's not a divi can see that they are taking the piss with their burgers. Just try and compare their finest (Big Mac) with a Half Pounder from Burger King. They're not even in the same ballpark! The patronising fuckers think you won?t notice if they lay a daft hat and a balloon on you!
Sorry to hear you found the eighties bleak Crimpo you should?ve come and joined our gang instead of hanging about with all those miserable, earnest, negative student types - we had a much better time tooling about in Mercs, Porches, Rollers, mobile phones clamped to our ears, gorgeous goldigging babes on each arm as we swaggered into the winebar to order the houses finest Krug! Ah, those were the days.
Officer Dibble ? on a nostalgia trip.
-
jj
Re: o/t the 80s
The 80s was a TERRIBLE decade: Thatcher set Brit gainst Brit, and her dogma-driven version of 'Social Darwinism' (the weakest go to the wall) wasn't compensated-for by her assertion that she really cared about the underclass (which her policies greatly swelled) and that the trickle-down effect would make everything all right- it didn't. The damage done by her is still waiting to be repaired: look at the railways, or our manufacturing industry (ho ho). And don't forget her attitude to freedom of speech: only as long as it was HER speaking........
The only people who look back on the decade fondly are those who profited: the unscrupulous, the greedy the violent and the stupid.
Most of my contemporaries would happily drink her blood.
The only people who look back on the decade fondly are those who profited: the unscrupulous, the greedy the violent and the stupid.
Most of my contemporaries would happily drink her blood.
-
jj
Re: British Porn and the Lib Dems
"Maggie taught us..........": couldn't you work it out for yourself, then?
All decades in all recent centuries have had an entrepreneurial updraft from the so-called working classes to the middle classes and beyond: you can trace it back to pre-Industrial Revolution times, and the notion of self-help, where a farrier would learn Ancient Greek, or start a village collective, making ironmongery.
Don't forget either that Betty Windsor's claim to the throne has its roots in the robber-barons pillaging their way to power by the 'might is right' principle.....and you want us to go back to that?
No bloody thankyou.
All decades in all recent centuries have had an entrepreneurial updraft from the so-called working classes to the middle classes and beyond: you can trace it back to pre-Industrial Revolution times, and the notion of self-help, where a farrier would learn Ancient Greek, or start a village collective, making ironmongery.
Don't forget either that Betty Windsor's claim to the throne has its roots in the robber-barons pillaging their way to power by the 'might is right' principle.....and you want us to go back to that?
No bloody thankyou.
-
jj
Re: British Porn and the Lib Dems
Baboons are NOT like children, in the sense that the former have a highly-structured society that works to minimise violence within the troop: rather like adult human society is supposed to work, but rarely does. A child reacts to deprivation, say, by initiating violence, until hopefully taught the error of his/her ways.
E O Wilson, ever since the days of 'Sociobiology', had and has a mixed standing in the scientific community. Many workers feel he talks a large proportion of unsupported bollocks.
E O Wilson, ever since the days of 'Sociobiology', had and has a mixed standing in the scientific community. Many workers feel he talks a large proportion of unsupported bollocks.
-
Officer Dibble
Re: o/t the 80s
Another one hanging out with the wrong crowed - if you?d have given Officer Dibble a call he?d have suggested that you to kick all those beardy university wallers into touch and come on over to join in the fun. Drinks would have been on the Officer and he'd have probably been able to fix you up with some big haired, big titted dollies to boot. Hey, com'on dude that's just got to have beat any students union debating session you care to remember. All those that didn?t enjoy the eighties are those that were determined to be negative and miserable.
Of course Maggie didn?t care for the underclass - they were not the ones that were creating the wealth that made the UK boom at the end of the decade. And I'll wager that no other fucker did either - certainly not the man on the Clapham omnibus. You know I never overhead a conversation at the time (or to this day) where someone in the street, shop or pub said "Oh you know Charlotte I'm really really concerned about the underclass. I just can't get any sleep worrying about the poor dears" The only time I have heard anyone wringing their hands over the underclass is when Claire Short appears on Question Time. But talk is cheap and somehow, for all their concern and profest respect, I don't think Claire or Tony Benn will be inviting many of the underprileged underclass over to discuss the merits of the latest Harold Pinter play over a glass of Bougalis and a wedge of chibatia.
Yes, railways are fucked. But I reckon that's al lot to do with there being to many spoons in the pot. I don't have any opinions on what a solution might be except that the problem may benefit from strong person saying "Look, stop all this bickering and bollocking about - we're either going to do this or we're going to do that." But the fundamental problem with public ownership is that the employees then think it is a social service - with them as the beneficiaries. They don't care how crap and lazy they perform on the job because they'll never get the sack.
Manufacturing industry is fucked - but happily it doesn?t matter. As manual jobs have disappeared others have sprung up in service industries to replace them. I recently read a number of articles and I have first hand anecdotal experience that plumbers, decorators, mechanics and the like are finding it increasingly difficult to attract apprentices to their trade - why? Because youngsters nowadays do not want to do - as they perceive it - boring, unglamorous manual jobs. They want to advertising executives, layers, doctors, dot com millionaires and the like. It is said that very soon we WILL HAVE to take in economic migrants (asylum seekers in politically correct circles) because the folks who are here are just not interested in doing manual jobs, like in MANUFACTING. Nobdy desires to work on a production line all day. Not you, not me. So let's stop the posturing and hand wringing over manufactuing jobs
Freedom of Speech: I'm as totally opposed to these aspects of conservative social policy as anyone here.
Of course you're right about us looking back fondly at the eighties - we had good times making lots of luverly lolly and more importantly spending it! Wheyhey, look at my wad! Who wouldn't look back fondly at good times? But the crucial point that I have tried to make is that no one was barred from having a go. Everyone had the right to join in. If you were not successful the horrible truth is you only had yourself to blame - because it was down to the individual. And that is what a lot on the left cannot bear to confront - because it showed that we are not all equal at the most fundamental level.
And "unscrupulous?" "greedy?" "violent?" ?stupid?? It's a fair cop jj, I'll stick my hand up to all of those - except the "stupid" of course.
Officer Dibble 's - Bonfire of the Vanities
Of course Maggie didn?t care for the underclass - they were not the ones that were creating the wealth that made the UK boom at the end of the decade. And I'll wager that no other fucker did either - certainly not the man on the Clapham omnibus. You know I never overhead a conversation at the time (or to this day) where someone in the street, shop or pub said "Oh you know Charlotte I'm really really concerned about the underclass. I just can't get any sleep worrying about the poor dears" The only time I have heard anyone wringing their hands over the underclass is when Claire Short appears on Question Time. But talk is cheap and somehow, for all their concern and profest respect, I don't think Claire or Tony Benn will be inviting many of the underprileged underclass over to discuss the merits of the latest Harold Pinter play over a glass of Bougalis and a wedge of chibatia.
Yes, railways are fucked. But I reckon that's al lot to do with there being to many spoons in the pot. I don't have any opinions on what a solution might be except that the problem may benefit from strong person saying "Look, stop all this bickering and bollocking about - we're either going to do this or we're going to do that." But the fundamental problem with public ownership is that the employees then think it is a social service - with them as the beneficiaries. They don't care how crap and lazy they perform on the job because they'll never get the sack.
Manufacturing industry is fucked - but happily it doesn?t matter. As manual jobs have disappeared others have sprung up in service industries to replace them. I recently read a number of articles and I have first hand anecdotal experience that plumbers, decorators, mechanics and the like are finding it increasingly difficult to attract apprentices to their trade - why? Because youngsters nowadays do not want to do - as they perceive it - boring, unglamorous manual jobs. They want to advertising executives, layers, doctors, dot com millionaires and the like. It is said that very soon we WILL HAVE to take in economic migrants (asylum seekers in politically correct circles) because the folks who are here are just not interested in doing manual jobs, like in MANUFACTING. Nobdy desires to work on a production line all day. Not you, not me. So let's stop the posturing and hand wringing over manufactuing jobs
Freedom of Speech: I'm as totally opposed to these aspects of conservative social policy as anyone here.
Of course you're right about us looking back fondly at the eighties - we had good times making lots of luverly lolly and more importantly spending it! Wheyhey, look at my wad! Who wouldn't look back fondly at good times? But the crucial point that I have tried to make is that no one was barred from having a go. Everyone had the right to join in. If you were not successful the horrible truth is you only had yourself to blame - because it was down to the individual. And that is what a lot on the left cannot bear to confront - because it showed that we are not all equal at the most fundamental level.
And "unscrupulous?" "greedy?" "violent?" ?stupid?? It's a fair cop jj, I'll stick my hand up to all of those - except the "stupid" of course.
Officer Dibble 's - Bonfire of the Vanities