[Gurnelista]

Rene, of course some kids prefer solo sports like athletics, tennis, kayaking etc. but most prefer team sports where they can join in and have fund with their friends. At such a young age few are thinking about it in terms of a career and long-term success, so even if it means a 2hr trip for 30 mins it’s not just about the football, it’s a day out in the car, going somewhere new with dad/friends, and having laughs, fun, fish n chips…
Just ask any dad of 6-12 year old lads (and increasingly lasses), many of whom dedicate hours and £££ to this sort of thing, weekends and midweek.
If you haven’t yet been through it, maybe your time will come…

[Gurnelista]

JI-hadi – just give over playing the victim and whining about how we’ll all miss you when you’re gone! You do give the impression you’ve had practice at this.

As for Bucksiron, he got so much stick and then cleared off because he was so obviously wrong and was shown to be wrong on every topic he posted about – Brexit, covid and herd immunity, privatization, the Daily Mail, the Tories in general, and of course global warming. The pomposity and humourlessness didn’t help, either!

If you can’t stand the heat… etc. etc.

[Gurnelista]

A massive duck crashed into my greenhouse. It made a right mess and left me with a big bill.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Siderite

[Gurnelista]

Aye, a quick emotional outburst is far easier than thinking.

BS, what you need to understand is that Brexit – the whole exercise – was just a distraction from failed Tory policies. Briefly, here’s why…

Back then, the elderly, sick, poor, vulnerable, those on universal credit etc. were all suffering, not to mention many in work/business – just like now, in fact.

To stay in power, the Tories needed a scapegoat, a distraction, a way to blame somebody else for failure. They knew immigrants have always been an easy target. They knew they could get people to think the ‘problem’ was immigration and a so-called ‘loss of control’. So the government and their client journalists (80% of which are right-wing and helped Cameron and co. get elected) made people panic about being in the EU, about the ‘evil empire’, about jonny foreigner taking ‘our’ jobs, and so on.’Faceless eurocrats’ were the problem, not the Tories. So, the country went mad, and voted narrowly to leave.

So, who won? And what did they win? Answer: nobody and nothing.

You have to understand BS, that the current Tory party, and their mouthpieces in the right-wing press and TV, do not have your best interests at heart. They pretend they do, because they want your support, rather than making you think critically about complex economic and political issues. They know how to easily press your buttons and get you worked up about something or somebody else, but it’s never them.

Now, have a look at the study mentioned here. It’s a 20′ read, maybe, with some big words. Stick with the abstract if that’s way too much.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0289312

And here’s a tip. Next time you have to make a difficult decision, ask the least clever person that you know, what they would do. Then, do exactly the opposite.

[Gurnelista]

bartonscorpion wrote:

I wander why Look North didn’t interview a few struggling Brits and ask them if they would accept entering Spain or Portugal illegaly and be put up in nice hotels and get good food and be free to walk freely nd their upkeep be all paid for by these other countries people, yes 100% YES. YES, YES, but they never get the chance do they!!!

No, because we’ve left the EU!

bartonscorpion wrote:

Most British people are struggling to just keep living, even though many are in debt and poverty.

bartonscorpion wrote:

Gas / Elect goes up again in January it was annonced today, companies just charge whatever they like, no control by anyone !!!!!!!

Indeed, yet we were told that leaving EU would mean we could look after our own. No matter, Brexiters knew exactly what they were voting for. Except, they didn’t and now it’s official – see the story in the Times today, reproduced F.O.C. below.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3m8wx/less-intelligent-people-more-likely-vote-leave-brexit

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/people-with-lower-cognitive-ability-more-likely-to-vote-for-brexit-6pvprrvm6

[Gurnelista]

Ah, so the ‘we’ refers to your extended family, and the ‘propaganda war’ refers to what’s happening in Gaza and on the BBC (!) and how it affects you personally. You should’ve said.

Like most political and religious obsessives you think you’re the only one possessed of ‘the truth’(!) But, you need to understand that other posters on here may also have family and friends directly affected by this war, and have profound disagreements over what’s taking place. Most of us rightly look with horror, disgust and despair at what’s happening on both sides in Gaza, regardless of any connection.

As for other comments about fear, social justice and ‘righteousness’, you show your conclusions but not your faulty working-out. In fact, your own fear and insecurity probably originate in your upbringing, and your sources of (mis)information, such as inhaling the Mailyexpressograph and GBeebies, gammon maypoles which attempt to keep everyone in a state of fear, particularly fear of change, fear of difference, fear of, say, your personal bugbear of Afro-Caribbean lesbians (gay, black, women – three in one, the trinity made flesh!).

The result is they’ve made you a self-righteous far-righty, a Tommy Ten-Names Robinson in a cassock; a prisoner of your class, generation and faith. But, you’re also your own jailer. Chuck away that key now, for liberation and Truth await!

[Gurnelista]

Just Iron wrote:

… we definitely ARE in a propaganda war.

You sound quite frightened, JI.
Can you tell us who is this ‘we’?
And, who is your war against?

[Gurnelista]

Just Iron wrote:

As I said .. before Gurney stepped in with his measured and non partisan expose to urge everyone to stay clear of thinking which might emanate from a place that doesn’t harmonise with him ..

I’ll tell you what doesn’t harmonize with Gurn… it’s the lazy assumption above, that posters on here are semi-literate bumpkins, who, with a hefty dose of flattery and propaganda, can be groomed to think like any other member of the ‘gammonariat’. In fact there’s more than a passing resemblance to Les and Jonny on this count.

Feel free to recommend your propaganda, but at least make it clear about the authors’ backgrounds, their positions on Gaza, and how they chime with your own.

What’s happening there is truly hellish, and until both sides have different leaders without the brutal, medieval mindset which characterises so many fundamentally religious societies, it’s hard to see any way out. And, as DM said elsewhere, it could yet spread to involve third countries.

Never mind, it’s just God’s will, innit?

[Gurnelista]

Just Iron wrote:

Second to recommend two books. One is ‘A State Beyond the Pale’ by Robin Shepherd. The second, more detailed and definitely the best I’ve read on this topic, What Justice Demands’ by Elan Journo.

Nah, these are just puff-pieces for pro-Israel propaganda. The first (Shepherd’s) is by…

“a former kibbutznik and Director of International Affairs at the Israeli-funded and staunchly pro-Israel neocon think-tank, the Henry Jackson Society. The publisher is George Weidenfeld (the former political adviser and Chief of Cabinet to the first president of Israel, former Chairman of the Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Governor of the Weizmann Institute and Vice-Chairman of the EU-Israel Forum).”

The second (Journo’s) is from an author who is Vice President of the right-wing Ayn Rand Institute (look it up, anyone who doesn’t know it) and is published by Post Hill Press, a publisher specialising in conservative and (loony) Christian titles.

Really JI, you come on here with your religious, right-wing propaganda thinking nobody knows any better. It’s truly shameful.

Next time, either hold your peace or lay your cards on the table and just say ‘I am pro Christian, pro-Jewish and right wing, so I think these books are great.’ Coz that’s what it boils down to.

As-salaam-Alaikum / Shalom

[Gurnelista]

Oh well.. close… but ya get nowt for being second!
I can’t do these at all, usually, same with cryptic crosswords. Computer games sometimes, but it’s not the same as Subbuteo…

[Gurnelista]

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-e&q=nutbush+city+limits+lyrics

[Gurnelista]

Nutbush!

[Gurnelista]

On scarves and tartan…

Tartan was trendy back in the early-mid 70s, in line with the Rollers, but also the push for Scottish independence, and the Scottish look of the biggest club of the time – Man United – with Tommie Docherty in charge and his several Scots signings (Graham, Forsyth, Holton, Macari…).

But then came the ‘silk’ scarves (polyester actually) with tassles(!), and club names printed across, which neither of the above articles mentions. Very commercial in look, they couldn’t be made at home and they didn’t keep you warm. Perhaps they were a ‘suedehead’ accessory, to complement the crombie, sta-press and brogues?

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=15071706786&ref_=ps_ggl_2038407968&cm_mmc=ggl-_-UK_Shopp_RareStandard-_-product_id=bi%3A%2015071706786-_-keyword=&gclid=CjwKCAjwp8OpBhAFEiwAG7NaEkNVwK5OdjzQ_k8SeJv4D0_hysC7hwM2OfFVQSnu0117SUxSs-aOdBoC4A4QAvD_BwE#&gid=1&pid=1

[Gurnelista]

Too true, Two Wrights. And speaking of stadiums as contemporary cathedrals as NI was, for a tour around the chapels of the ‘football pools towns’ north of the border, see the god that is Meades….

1 user thanked author for this post.

TwoWrights

[Gurnelista]

It’s a pity he’s so reliant on the visual medium and coat-holding for others.

Re. his attempt at metaphor, two points…

1. A good metaphor carries an image of something ordinary, yet its impact is extra-ordinary because of its similarity to something more abstract. But, ‘shotgun waffle’? What’s that? And, a labyrinth is a maze, yet the post is a straight road. A 5 year old could follow it, yet Punton’s ghost evidently struggles – I blame all those videos. Oh, a ‘labyrinth of waffle’ is pretty much tautology, no?

2. It’s probably plagiarised. He has form for that.

So, it’s hardly the authorly equivalent of a ship in a bottle – JI’s lit crit seems to be on a par with religion.

[Gurnelista]

Not forgetting the financial institutions – those temples to mammon around the City of London and elsewhere. Interesting topic – I didn’t know you were a closet historian of the built environment, NI!

As for ‘being keen’ on religion, most folk don’t give a fig if some want to believe in virgin births, miracles, returning from the dead, or any number of impossible events, let alone the denial of dinosaurs and evolution!

The crux of it though is that too many so-called Christians have spent too much time sucking on the teet of Murdoch and co. that they’ve allowed their politics to overrule Christian compassion. They’ve allowed themselves to become closer to the far right than to their faith.

Their egos have taken over, and they’ve become more concerned with keeping up appearances than with sympathy and understanding. Even on social media, where they are unknown, faceless and anonymous, they feel obliged to defend the political right and oppose change, no matter what the cost to humanity.

An example? Look at the so-called “small boats” (note how the phrase removes any sense of wretchedly distressed humanity). Where’s the Christian compassion on here for those in such dire straits? This tragedy is largely ignored, or if it gets a mention at all, it’s usually in the context of Brexit, immigration, or “50,000 Turks are coming”, etc. etc. Yet, had Christ been on Dover beach, would he be turning back those boats? Would he be patrolling up and down with his Fisher-Price binoculars shouting ‘Go forth and multiply, we’re full up!’, Farage style? Yet, it’s people like Farage that most closely reflect the views and values of the plastic preachers on here.

And then there’s the support – tacit or otherwise – for Trump, Johnson, Brexit and the lies, and the hostility towards women’s rights, BLM, gays, refugees, or their silence on a multitude of crises from housing to inflation.

It doesn’t stop there. We are also regaled with videos from, for and by “Christian” nut-jobs, along with links to sites that make British Tories look like Marxists. Oh, and then there’s the pompous self-righteousness, and the ersatz humility, punctuated by puerile jokes, e.g. about Afro-Caribbean lesbians.

Religion? It’s is just a cover for their personal prejudice and bigotry. Shame on them all.

[Gurnelista]

All this pious piffle and proselytising about gods… many find the supernatural bizarre, pathological and harmful to society. In fact, like obeisance to royalty, religion is so bonkers it makes astrology look respectable.

Religiosity and self-righteousness are so often used as a cover for personal prejudice, racism, bigotry and all kinds of inner conflicts, complexes and hang-ups, while in society, religion often mobilises to oppose change and progress, especially around basic issues of democracy, human rights, women’s rights and the death penalty.

Worse, it’s frequently used as a justification for the kind of monstrous acts we currently see in the middle-east, as well as being a tool for controlling the population, with a line of ‘just accept it, it’s god’s will, and so on.

This attitude of ‘let it be’ and loyalty to scriptural interpretation is a view which steers the religious away from politics. Just look in Britain today – polycrises, injustice, suffering, refugees, foodbanks, homelessness, a million kids don’t even have their own bed… Yet the plastic Christians on here and elsewhere are as quiet as church mice about it (unlike ABC Welby who recently came out to remind them of British and Christian values, and even got criticised for it!).

In fact the co-existence in the same person of ‘holier than thou’ and ‘devil may care’ brings to mind a Jekyll and Hyde figure who uses religion as a form of insurance against, or even justification for his/her own inner monstrousness – a sort of roof prop which prevents the whole edifice from collapsing.

Opiate of the masses? A sort of inner ‘Cliff Richard’?

May their god help them.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Northumbiron, Heath

[Gurnelista]

You’re missing my point Sid – I’ll have another go – I’m not questioning the importance of what’s happening in NG, I’m questioning the sudden interest on here, when there are other humanitarian calamities worldwide which are far worse and involve far more civilian victims starving or meeting a brutal, bloody end – as you rightly say – yet they pass without comment, particularly from those who we might expect to show some Christian compassion. Why might this be?

[Gurnelista]

It’s surprising the interest expressed in our esteemed columns about the unfolding crisis in NK. True, it’s a catastrophe which seems to be worsening. Yet other, far bloodier conflicts around the world pass unremarked. Whatever the reason, I’m certain it has nothing to do with the fact that some 90% of NK are Christian, while 99% of Azeris are Muslim.

Those websites? Eurasianet and Meduza, are mostly pro-western and anti-Russian, while the Carnegie article mentions extraordinary claims by the Christian right that Muslim Azeris are inherently genocidal!
https://international.la-croix.com/news/politics/azerbaijan-specifically-targeting-christians-in-nagorno-karabakh-says-catholic-charity/18366

So, is this concern on Bru genuine and humanitarian? If it is, why not highlight the plight of others in far worse straits? Or, is it merely anti-Muslim propaganda, attempting to spread around ridiculous notions of a hierarchy of faith?

[Gurnelista]

The Met is in a terrible state and has been for years, with murder of innocent/unarmed suspects, rape and many other appalling events, many involving women and blacks. It badly needs root and branch reform, but of course there will be resistance. I think you need to recognise this JI and not be so quick to defend the status quo.

[Gurnelista]

64 wrote:

It’s always odd to se how football fans put weird values on a business it’s employees and management purely because it’s a football club.

Very true. For some, it approaches a kind of faith, with a similar abandonment of rationality.

[Gurnelista]

Oh well, if someone sees a post they don’t like they can always ignore it.. bla bla bla

[Gurnelista]

Quite likely!
Let’s also hear it for South Sudan, Yemen, Eastern Congo ….. where hundreds of thousands have already suffered hunger, disease, violence and death over several years now.

[Gurnelista]

The women’s final? It was pretty good. But although the girls have the tactics and fitness, they seem to lack the individual strength and ability to provide that spark ’64 mentions.

Flags? Hardly any around – maybe because it has become synonymous with the shame of Brexit. But the tabloids were still full of patriotic hyperbole, because moments like these are an opportunity to appear like they’re readers’ best friends. Fanatical support sells well. And their chumminess on great occasions and support for the national team makes readers more likely to follow their political line later on, even when it goes against their own interests.

But, this ‘support’ for England’s men and women also puts the national team and young rising stars under tremendous pressure – ‘England expects…’ and so on. And this pressure – coming from the exaggerated, populist excess written and said before most major tournaments – is why England often eff-up in World Cups. What do the press barons really care? They’re mostly tax-exiles and foreigners anyway.

As someone said above, the Spanish didn’t believe their own press, and reaped the benefit. We’d do well to do the same.

[Gurnelista]

This question of whether fans should care about DH’s past and present gets to the heart of whether you support just the shirt, or whether you care about the club as a community asset; its people, values, local importance, reputation and so on.
If you only support the shirt, and clap whether it’s good, bad or ugly on or off the field, then fine.
But, those who see the club as a community asset which brings people together, develops youngsters’ attitudes, skills and careers, provides entertainment and jobs, and generally gives an identity, pride and occasionally hope to the place, are rightly concerned about the owner. This is particularly so while recovering from an abusive relationship with Swann, and the decline from Championship to NLN in some 12 years.
There’s history on here of slavish support for disastrous leaders. Not just in football but in politics too, despite many more sensible voices warning of the dangers. The clarity and proof offered by IB’s posts is a welcome voice of sanity, and a weapon against the collective denial of reality in favour of ‘belief’ which has been as fashionable as it has been foolish in recent years.

3 users thanked author for this post.

Just Iron, Ferrite, TheJuryeffsOut

[Gurnelista]

Kippers to a man.

[Gurnelista]

Cocker’s ‘Friends’? A great rendition with a sort of evangelical quality to it. An atheist hymn? The Woodstock version is good, too.
Two more: Hard to beat the original but Tena’s Molotov make it their own …..

[Gurnelista]

No, because ‘he’ is man-made. He exists between people’s ears.

[Gurnelista]

Like someone said above, it depends on the moment/mood, no? The uke(?) version is great if you’re tired n hungover. Which one for you?
Here’s another rip-roaring cover….. no need for the version we all know..

[Gurnelista]

Where do we start? Some great stuff above.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Deereyme66

[Author]

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