Words, by Wiggia

If you stand back and look at the world today and compare with a couple of years ago you could be forgiven if you think the world has gone mad. Never across the globe has so much effort been put into raising issues that not that long ago would have been seen as tittle-tattle and ended as tomorrow's fish and chip wrappings.

It is as if the Brexit result and the nomination of Donald Trump as POTUS has energised the defeated armies of Liberalism into a mad frenzy of retribution by any method: the status quo must remain even when proved to be corrupt and failing.

More than ever before the serried ranks of feminists, activists, LGBT XXXX protesters and endless lost causes have jumped on the protest bandwagon and threatened Armageddon if they are not listened to and their claims, however unjustified, acted upon. All of this we know: it is non-stop in the media in an endless rolling news of of bigged-up tittle-tattle whilst serious matters go by the board, all being defined by these self-appointed arbiters and guardians of public morality.

All of this is now accompanied with its own language: a whole new lexicon of words and phrases are now used to describe what before was illustrated with simple English.

The list grows seemingly daily, it’s almost as though there is a prize in the junior subs office (if they still exist !) for the latest non-word or bastardised phrase. Where did it all start? Your guess is as good as mine, but the many phobias certainly were an early portent of things to come: "phobia" or "phobic" being attached to ever more groups and individuals without any real justification. It is labelling, compartmentalising of all and sundry so they can be labelled with a phobia. Of course, once handed the tag all instantly become nasty people by default.

Phrases like "safe space", "triggered", "micro-aggression" are darlings of the University campus. We have become inured to these words because they are used out of context so much. The most ridiculous is "cultural appropriation": does anyone think before using that phrase? It doesn’t seem so, being the most out of context of all the isms, ons etc.

Having said that, “white privilege” runs it close, the inference being all white people should be subservient for the perceived sins of their forebears and colonialism - as if white people are the only ones ever to vanquish and colonise.

Despite the various genders that are now perceived to be around, and the gross overuse of of associated words like "transgender" and the myriad of others that would have you believe that every other person was of a gender other than male or female, the number of these exceptions to the general rule is minute in the scheme of things. Reading and viewing the press and the way political parties cave to minorities, you would be forgiven if you thought otherwise. A good example of the nonsense of it all is the use of the word "queer", totally non PC as a description up until a year ago, but now perfectly respectable.

Currently it has ramped up to the level of threatening language and would be funny if it were not being bandied about by people who should know better. "Nazi" is used so much it has become meaningless, yet the label sticks in some cases, and the same applies to "hate crime" being used by authorities in a total overkill of language over substance. The recent shooting in Texas was described by a police officer as a "hate crime"; two years ago it would have had the correct label of "mass murder". The phrase "hate crime" almost gives the perpetrator an excuse for his crime - hate caused by… as if we should understand him and equate him with those (sicker) people who have said nasty things on the web. In the eyes of the users of the "hate crime" label there is no real difference, hate being the equaliser .

This is all not only wrong but is lazy or deliberately antagonistic. The MSM have a lot to answer for in this area, cloning the words of those groups and their Common Purpose overlords. Will it run its course and simply fade away to be replaced with another form of derogatory language? There is no sign of a slow down but things do change and the sooner the better as far as I am concerned. Oh, and I’m offended by it all and that probably makes me a racist - or does it?

Friday Night Music: Spanish Strings, by JD

I have no idea who she is except that her name is Leticia Prados Pelet and this is as much as I could find on the web-

https://www.facebook.com/leticia.pradospelet
https://www.facebook.com/pg/Leticia-Harp-Experience-143583822659225/about/?ref=page_internal

Catalan Briefing (alternative), by JD

As your newly appointed Catalan correspondent, I feel duty bound to bring you the latest musical news -

1. the flight of the payaso (=clown)


2. a cry for help


3. the Barcelona F.C 'himno' (played before every game in the Nou Camp)

Catalonia - not so simple... by JD

A few more thoughts based on my reading of many of the Spanish newspapers as well as some phone conversations with friends in Spain.  My friends vary in other opinions from 'not quite reactionary' to 'not quite republican' but they are unanimous in regarding Puigdemont as deranged! This evening's news that Puigdemont thinks the Spanish government has carried out a coup d'etat against Catalonia is proof that he is living in a parallel universe...

Nice touch to have TinTin observing the landing! Elsewhere on the news pages a previous catalan leader, Josep Tarradellas,  is quoted as saying in his memoirs that 'in politics, everything is acceptable except ridicule' Once you become an object of ridicule you are finished. 

The Spanish newspapers online have readers' comments, as they do in the UK. A large percentage of those comments regard 'El Puchy' as a joke. In fact I saw in one of the papers a photograph of a Puigdemont Halloween costume complete with baggy suit and oversize 'Beatles' wig.

This scorn and contempt began after Puigdemont had called a meeting of his political party at which he was expected to announce regional elections. While party members assembled and waited for his announcement he was in a car travelling to France and, after boarding an aeroplane in Marseille, he turned up in Brussels to plead his case 'at the heart of the EU' instead of before his own people. He ran away from the conflict which he had created. At that point he lost all credibility. His own supporters were extremely angry and even called him a traitor. And then Rajoy called the election for him.

 Last week the former Spanish PM, Felipe Gonzalez, said that Puigdemont running away to Brussels was an act of cowardice. In Spanish that is a very serious accusation. You can insult a man by calling him 'cabron' or 'coño' or say he is 'de puta madre' and they will have minimal impact but to call him a coward will produce a volatile reaction because that is to call into question his manhood. Many of the online comments have reflected this view.

There have also been more than a few comments about who is paying for this long and expensive stay in Brussels. "Is it coming from an anonymous bank account in Andorra or from the famous 3%, (a reference to the backhander extracted on all public contracts in Catalonia.)"  The two previous Catalan parliamentary leaders, Jordi Pujol and Artur Mas are both currently under investigation for fraud and two of Pujol's sons have served prison terms in connection with the aforementioned 3%. So it is logical to expect that people will ask those questions of Puigdemont.

Another thing I have noticed in the Spanish press is the exasperation and irritation at how the press of other countries view Spain in terms of stereotypes; flamenco and bullfighting and sunshine and vino. But invariably they view Spain in terms of the Civil War and through rose tinted glasses. They rely on the romantic fiction perpetrated by Orwell, Hemingway and going back as far as Washington Irving. And it is very definitely romantic fiction! 
Even the historian Paul Preston finally acknowledged on ‘Start the Week’ on Radio 4 in 2012  that Orwell's book, Homage to Catalonia was about as relevant to the Spanish Civil War as Spike Milligan’s Hitler: My Part in his Downfall was to World War Two. 

The foreign press and commentators all rely on the same tired clichés about Spain: they focus on ideals instead of common sense. They are more in love with Don Quijote than with Sancho Panza. They ignore the reality and the seriousness of the current farce, a tragic farce.

"The escapade has damaged those former ministers who faced up to their responsibilities in Spain by seemingly creating a push for them to be subject to strict precautionary measures because they constituted a flight risk. Indeed, eight of them are currently being held in pre-trial custody. Puigdemont’s behavior must be entertaining for some, but it is tragic for those who were unlucky enough to be in government with him.

"The decision by Puigdemont and his ex-ministers to call themselves a government in exile is laughable in that they are responsible for nothing, in contrast with the Catalan and republican governments based overseas during the rule of Franco. They oversaw the protection of exiles, assets and archives, while also being responsible for institutional relations with other countries that recognized them."

"The comparison between the restrained 40-year resistance of the former premier of Catalonia Josep Tarradellas and the shameful adolescent blunders of his successor over the course of just one week is a sad one for both Catalonia, and for a Spain that is committed to an autonomous and pro-autonomy Catalan region."

https://elpais.com/elpais/2017/11/07/inenglish/1510043525_086434.html

FRIDAY MUSIC: Mighty Northumbria, by JD

Separatism and independence seem to be the current fad. Long Live Freedonia! Long live Sloganism! Well, now is the hour! It is time to restore the ancient Kingdom of Northumbria! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Northumbria

And, unlike Catalonia, Northumbria has the historical legitimacy of having been an actual Kingdom with a long line of real Kings who lived in Bamburgh Castle. Time to display the heritage of music and poetry and dance.













"Dance To Your Daddy" (When the boat comes in) - embed disabled, please click for link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hO1GPGtetw






Update: JD sends a bonus track...

The wand of collusion

Look at the modern Labour Party and ask yourself:

If each Labour MP had a wand that when waved, would magically create for all their voters reasonably-paid jobs, good housing, well-disciplined and talent-stretching education, and good health practices rather than burgeoning sickness services, with the additional result that the politician was no longer needed...

... which of them would wave that wand?

I'd say, people like Frank Field and Jess Phillips, yes - but Blair, Mandelson etc?

Isn't it the case that some "reformers" do enough to justify the need for themselves, and not so much as to make themselves redundant?

From what I read of the Fabians, they started out as posh people discussing "doing good" unto the lower classes without the slightest desire to elevate the latter to their own level - in fact they had quite an enthusiasm for eugenics. So really it was about power - themselves as gardeners, weeding and pruning their social inferiors.

And as for people like "Tony" - didn't he do well out of "doing good"? Not just what in the Seventies was called an "ego trip", but money and status. Then there's the serpentine Peter, and the other managerial types, both smooth and rough, who had a d**n good career out of it all - the nearest I ever came to hearing from Roy Hattersley was when his megaphone car toured the constituency to say so long and thanks for all the fish.

Yet on the other side of the Commons, what do we see? Friends of property developers and money-shufflers, gatherers of directorships and inside tips. With honourable exceptions, I suspect that many would wave their wand to vanish the great unwashed and make piles of money appear; or alternatively, to create millions more poor, MD-enriching people, so long as they were kept well away from where the ruling elite live.

I'm beginning to see some points of cross-party resemblance.

I'm not clever enough to imagine what the LibDems might magick. Though looking at the education and careers of the Cleggs one can see what the wand has done for themselves, if not for others.

The masks slipped in the Palace of Westminster when Cameron led the applause for Blair, and when both sides stamped on electoral reform (proposed by the LibDems, but mostly for their own purposes).

Getting out of the EU is just the start.

FRIDAY MUSIC: Van Morrison, by JD

No introduction necessary for this man........ "take me back to when the world made more sense"