# David Starkey On Newsnight....



## cantsin (Aug 12, 2011)

Jesus wept...quoting Enoch Powell...blaming the integration of white 'chavs' with black 'chavs' . and the resulting 'jamaican patois' culture as part of the causes of this week....

we need the whole transcript/youtube clip but for this utter clown to be employed as a "HISTORIAN" all over the Beeb is in an embarassment .

meanwhile that interesting young bloke who wrote the Chavs book got about 30 secs to speak


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## butchersapron (Aug 12, 2011)

starkey said:
			
		

> The problem is that the whites have become black


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## toblerone3 (Aug 12, 2011)

David Starkey. Isn't it already quite well known that he is a reactionary historian.  What has changed now?


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## Bernie Gunther (Aug 12, 2011)

Isn't he a sort of professional twat though, like that sweary chef bloke?


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## N_igma (Aug 12, 2011)

What the fuck did he really say that? Word for word?


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## Miss-Shelf (Aug 12, 2011)

it was fucking disgusting


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## Libertad (Aug 12, 2011)

Quite amusing, if it hadn't been so poisonous.


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## cantsin (Aug 12, 2011)

meanwhile, the Greeks are marching in solidarity with the Rioters !


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## cantsin (Aug 12, 2011)

cantsin said:


> meanwhile, the Greeks are marching in solidarity with the Rioters !


and then we get Tyler Brule and Sid David fucking Tang contributing their ten penn'orth...it's been a long week : (


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## Pickman's model (Aug 12, 2011)

if david starkey lives a thousand years, people will say this was his unfinest hour


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## littlebabyjesus (Aug 12, 2011)

So the racists think it's ok to be racist in public now? 

Well I suppose at least we find out who they are.


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## Refused as fuck (Aug 12, 2011)

David Starkey said:
			
		

> Do you glorify rap?


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## agricola (Aug 12, 2011)

Starkey is a troll and has been for years.  Didnt he say something about us Welsh and the Scots a while back?


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## Dr Dolittle (Aug 12, 2011)

If he goes anywhere near a place with a large  black population within the next few weeks, he won't live five minutes. It will make those riots look mild. He seemed to be saying all black culture is inevitably bad - that a black person, in order to be successful, must, in effect, become white (and he gave the example of David Lammy, Tottenham's MP.) Will he ever be allowed on The Moral Maze after this? I bet even the BNP will think he went a bit over the top.


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## Bernie Gunther (Aug 12, 2011)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/

http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/about-us/contact-us/

http://www.raceequalityfoundation.org.uk/contact


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## Pickman's model (Aug 12, 2011)

agricola said:


> Starkey is a troll and has been for years. Didnt he say something about us Welsh and the Scots a while back?


nothing complimentary i hope


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## danny la rouge (Aug 12, 2011)

St*rm F**nt are enjoying it.


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## Red Storm (Aug 12, 2011)

Starkey enjoys being the most controversial and unpleasant person on TV. Like agricola said he is a troll.


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## Dr Dolittle (Aug 12, 2011)

Don't know about being a troll, but he's infamous as one of the rudest people in the media.


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## Red Storm (Aug 12, 2011)

Can anyone put a youtube vid of this up?


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## iswhatitis (Aug 12, 2011)

never heard of that site, had a look, and they have a 300+ page thread about the astronomy picture of the day, all glowing science love. and its the fifth run of that thread. wasnt expecting that when i was on the forum main page and saw the latest post in one forum was about klan splinter groups.

guess it shows that idiots dont have to be idiots on all fronts.

obv. fuck white power and all that, but still, that was a little odd


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## Pickman's model (Aug 12, 2011)

Red Storm said:


> Can anyone put a youtube vid of this up?


give them time! it only happened 40 minutes ago!


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## danny la rouge (Aug 12, 2011)

iswhatitis said:


> they have a 300+ page thread about the astronomy picture of the day, all glowing science love.


The Patrick Moore effect.


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## Santino (Aug 12, 2011)

Was it sufficiently incendiary to warrant investigation by the police?


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## Kid_Eternity (Aug 12, 2011)

He's the one that appears on Question Time every now and then and I think is actually David Mitchell in disguise?


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## danny la rouge (Aug 12, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> He's the one that appears on Question Time every now and then and I think is actually David Mitchell in disguise?


Cloud Atlas or Peep Show?


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## Pickman's model (Aug 12, 2011)

Santino said:


> Was it sufficiently incendiary to warrant investigation by the police?


no we'd like it done properly


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## iswhatitis (Aug 12, 2011)

there were lots of pictures of things on fire 

and if you were pressed, the pics werent focussed on the black things. in fact the blackness seemed to be regarded as some obstruction to be discarded


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## Santino (Aug 12, 2011)

He's on Radio 5 right now talking about it again.


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## danny la rouge (Aug 12, 2011)

Santino said:


> He's on Radio 5 right now talking about it again.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/5live/


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## danny la rouge (Aug 12, 2011)

"We've seen the results of it [black culture]".


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## Santino (Aug 12, 2011)

Classic begging the question.

'What do you know about black culture?'

'Well, we've just seen the results of it.'

[paraphrasing]


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## danny la rouge (Aug 12, 2011)

"A lot of blacks were involved. The Tweets are written in black patois. The language of nihism".


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## danny la rouge (Aug 12, 2011)

"It wasn't inter-communal violence...the whites have become black."
"A Jamaican patois that has been intruded in England".


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## ska invita (Aug 12, 2011)

starkey on wiki p:



> Politics
> 
> David Starkey was, according to himself, raised in an austere, frugal environment of near-poverty, with his parents often unemployed for long periods of time, an environment which, he later stated, taught him "the value of money".[11] Starkey's politics were "middle-of the-road Labour left until the end of the 1970s," when the Callaghan administration "blew the nation's finances".[11] He now sees himself as a contrarian Tory, who enjoys intellectual "fireworks and games"[11] provoking controversy on issues such as multiculturalism: "What's striking about our problem ethnic communities is that they are the ones with the least commitment to self-betterment."[12]
> 
> Starkey offended some viewers of BBC One's Question Time in April 2009 when, in response to a question about potentially having St. George's Day declared a national holiday for England, he criticised Scottish, Irish and Welsh nationalisms describing these nations as "feeble little countries". In the same context, he described England as a "formerly great" nation.[13] On Any Questions? (BBC Radio 4) on 8 October 2010, he referred to a fellow guest as having "prattled on". Starkey has appeared as a regular on BBC One's Question Time since the 1990s and has gained a reputation for his openness and uncompromising nature.



emily whatsherface is crap as well


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## Pickman's model (Aug 12, 2011)

ska invita said:


> starkey on wiki p:
> 
> emily whatsherface is crap as well


maitlis

emily maitlis


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## ska invita (Aug 13, 2011)

maitlis
maitlis
maitlis
maitlis
maitlis
maitlis
maitlis
maitlis
maitlis
maitlis

thanks, got it


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## littlebabyjesus (Aug 13, 2011)

I trust you typed those out individually, invita.

*peers over glasses*


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## ska invita (Aug 13, 2011)

yes i did. and i learnt a valuable lesson. emily maplins is shit


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## sw16 (Aug 13, 2011)

He had a point, somewhere in all that crap. He just articulated it VERY badly and mixed up "gangsta culture" with "black culture".

When men and women arrived on the Windrush, they didn't arrive with bandanas wrapped around their faces, claiming to be crips and bloods, talking about how many "bitches" they'd fucked, how much "swag" (designer clothing and material possessions) they'd amassed.

The only truth in Starkey's comments surfaced at the end, when he started to briefly outline the *macho, brutal, nihilistic, misogynistic, homophobic, anti-intellectual, materialistic gangsta culture *that has saturated the consciousness of so much of the youth. *That's not black culture. If you asked an upstanding old West Indian gentleman what he thought of it, he'd probably react with the same disgust Starkey had.*

Before people step in and try to defend rap music, think about what rap music means to you. I'm not talking about Public Enemy, De La Soul, Talib Kwali, Mos Def, or The Sugar Hill Gang (as the usually very sharp and honest Charlie Brooker so facetiously suggested on Twitter) but the really horrible shit that kids these days actually listen to, not the stuff that white middle class liberals aged 30+, through their rose-tinted spectacles, think of as "hip hop" / "rap".

The stuff (e.g. the rapper Giggs) that is popular amongst the youth, the kids in the estates, really is generally very negative, nihilistic, you could almost say psychopathic. And I can't honestly say that it's doing anyone any good. The old "reflection of reality" line doesn't fly - this is just gratuitous, horrible criminal fantasy. And it's not something anyone in their right mind should be defending.

So, the stuffy old man was right about one thing at least.

*Black culture is decent and good and needs to be defended. This gangsta rubbish is poison. It is poison and death to our youth, our communities, our society.*


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## Belushi (Aug 13, 2011)

Here for those who missed it

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14513517


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## Kid_Eternity (Aug 13, 2011)

It's incredible how bad the bloody newsnight woman was on that, totally out of her depth.


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## sw16 (Aug 13, 2011)

Dr Dolittle said:


> If he goes anywhere near a place with a large black population within the next few weeks, he won't live five minutes. It will make those riots look mild. He seemed to be saying all black culture is inevitably bad - that a black person, in order to be successful, must, in effect, become white (and he gave the example of David Lammy, Tottenham's MP.) Will he ever be allowed on The Moral Maze after this? I bet even the BNP will think he went a bit over the top.



The problem is that people are dealing in generalisations, trying to define rigidly what blackness and whitness mean in terms of stereotypes. And black people, the ones that buy into the gangsta bullshit (and white people too) can be just as bad, imposing these negative archetypes upon themselves and each other. If you don't talk all "yeah blud safe doe fam you get me" then you're some kind of uncle tom. People call David Lammy a "coconut". Would they rather he was a coke-selling gunman? The imposition of such identities, the expectation that you live up to a stereotype, that is as terrible an oppression as any other.

This kind of peer pressure, to live up to a fashionable gangsta stereotype, can the undoing of a young person. That's not black culture! It's probably not their parents' culture and it's certainly not their grandparents'.

I heard Darkus Howe commenting on the riots, about stop and search, about all kinds of things. What he didn't do, and what he SHOULD do, is stand up and actually tell the youth to stop all this foolishness. Some of them respect him. More of them respect him than David Cameron.


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## Red Storm (Aug 13, 2011)

@sw16 I don't think you can paint every black person with the same culture. I don't think there is a black culture only culture influenced by black people. Working class people in the same area share a culture different to black and white middle class people. 

I'm not trying to downplay the influence black people have had on culture btw.


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## sw16 (Aug 13, 2011)

Red Storm said:


> @sw16 I don't think you can paint every black person with the same culture. I don't think there is a black culture only culture influenced by black people. Working class people in the same area share a culture different to black and white middle class people.
> 
> I'm not trying to downplay the influence black people have had on culture btw.



You're absolutely right. I have been lazy, and used completely the wrong term here, saying "black culture" here, when I mean "black cultures". But even that is really inadequate. We're a product of our family unit's culture, our neighbourhood's culture, all these things, as much as any sort of ethnic grouping.

I think we have to remove this term, "black culture", from the riot discourse entirely. It serves no purpose. But there is a very real and very damaging gangster culture throughout the youth and especially in the public schools, colleges, estates.


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## Gramsci (Aug 13, 2011)

Belushi said:


> Here for those who missed it
> 
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14513517



thanks for putting this up Belushi. It was worth seeing for the other 2 contributors Dreda Say Mitchell and Owen Jones ( author of book Chavs the Demonisation of the working class) who held there own against Starkey.

Starkey took a clever take on Enochs argument by saying that Enoch was right but that instead of Rivers of Blood the Black culture had been absorbed by section of the white ( I presume he means working class) community. I seem to remember Enoch getting the sack by Heath for being beyond the pale. And that was in 60s Britain which was hardly PC at the time.

So instead of all of us reading histories of the monarchy whilst supping on our pint of beer in the olde worlde pub we are out there in a feral pack infected by this foreign culture.

18th Century London was a dangerous place to live in. It was also a time of riots , drinking and other activities that Starkey would see as beneath the dignity of a man of his exquisite cultural tastes. I can see Starkey back in 18c Mayfair holding forth about the dangerous classes in the east end of London in the same fashion. And that was not due to foreign cultural influences by immigrants.

He refused to accept any other reasons underlying the recent riots. Starkeys whole argument was cultural- its in effect a culture war. For such a politically conservative historian its a bit surprising that he relies solely on culture and refuses to contemplate any other social or economic reasons. ( As suggested by Owen Jones).

Given that Starkey at least speaks his mind. That was one of the more interesting news items ive seen on the riots.

I also take SW16 point about some aspects of the glorification of gangsterism. But the way Starkey is using it is imo leaving out other underlying factors that lead to disorder.

I thought Emily Maitlis was ok. But im biased as I think she is hot.


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## Gramsci (Aug 13, 2011)

sw16 said:


> I heard Darkus Howe commenting on the riots, about stop and search, about all kinds of things. What he didn't do, and what he SHOULD do, is stand up and actually tell the youth to stop all this foolishness. Some of them respect him. More of them respect him than David Cameron.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=herSDvIVTFw&feature=player_embedded

Here is poor copy of Darcus Howes piece but sound is good. I think you should watch it again. He was trying to analyse the situation and put it into context. I dont think he would use the word foolishness. I would love to see Darcus Howe up against Starkey.


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## Stoat Boy (Aug 13, 2011)

Urban culture innit ? Thats the problem. And the language thing is important. There is a segment of our society who speak in such a way that nobody with even a modicum of commercial sense would let them deal with customers.


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## DotCommunist (Aug 13, 2011)

it has long been a tactic of disempowmerment to denigrate people for speaking non rp, be it regional dialect, creole or a sociolect the ptb express dismay that the lower order just won't speak the queens english.


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## Spanky Longhorn (Aug 13, 2011)

beat dem


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## Stoat Boy (Aug 13, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> it has long been a tactic of disempowmerment to denigrate people for speaking non rp, be it regional dialect, creole or a sociolect the ptb express dismay that the lower order just won't speak the queens english.



True dat.

But you aint going to employ them if they cannot express themselves in a clear and articulate manner, no matter what there accent.


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## kavenism (Aug 13, 2011)

What amuses me about this debate about the causes or a possible explanation for the riots is that whenever anyone mentions social deprivation, poverty, the attacks on education, etc they’re slated as making excuses for people and that those involved no matter what their background possess some mythical entity called free-will and responsibility which allows them to rise above their social conditions. 

Yet somehow when the discussion is about rap, hip-hop, MTV, black culture, etc these are apparently all powerful and deterministic influences for which “free will” has no defence. Demonstrates the bullshit and double standards of these commentators doesn’t it.


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## Libertad (Aug 13, 2011)

Some excellent points being made here, Urban doing what Urban does best.
Thank you for your contribution SW16 and welcome.


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## smokedout (Aug 13, 2011)

Stoat Boy said:


> There is a segment of our society who speak in such a way that nobody with even a modicum of commercial sense would let them deal with customers.



and there's the rub.  they make shit slaves.


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## toblerone3 (Aug 13, 2011)

Wow, The Darcus Howe interview and the YouTube comments are a complete car crash! BBC interviewer was awful, but Darcus Howe wasn't coming across very well either. The fact there was no visual link and a time lag between the two didn't help.


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## quimcunx (Aug 13, 2011)

danny la rouge said:


> http://www.bbc.co.uk/5live/



They are giving him a 2nd outlet? FFS.

e2a: missed this was last night.


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## goldenecitrone (Aug 13, 2011)

Gansta rap should definitely be banned if it's making people riot like this. I was brought up on Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet and I never rioted. These kids need some New Romantic songs in their lives.


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## Santino (Aug 13, 2011)

Why is "gangsta" culture a problem for poor black communities and not affluent white communities?


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## DotCommunist (Aug 13, 2011)

It's ok, cameron is importing some celebrity copper from the USA to break gang culture. This bloke is supposed to have broken the gang culture in LA and Boston. Yeah!


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## nino_savatte (Aug 13, 2011)

cantsin said:


> meanwhile, the Greeks are marching in solidarity with the Rioters !


Not just the Greeks. The Americans too.
http://bailoutpeople.org/


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## nino_savatte (Aug 13, 2011)

I heard about Starkey's outburst on Twitter. I'll have to watch it on iPlayer. No wonder the Tories love him so much.


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## weltweit (Aug 13, 2011)

Belushi said:


> Here for those who missed it
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14513517



Thanks, now I know what the thread is about at least!

Starkey is never scared of going in with a half baked idea is he, he probably should have cogitated on this one for a day or so before wading in.


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## weltweit (Aug 13, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> I heard about Starkey's outburst on Twitter. I'll have to watch it on iPlayer. No wonder the Tories love him so much.



And yet, when he is on Question Time, he attacks the tories as well as the rest.
The man has few allegiances it seems to me.


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## roctrevezel (Aug 13, 2011)

The trouble with Starkey is whatever tiny bit of truth may be buried somewhere in his comments is hidden very deeply under many layers of snobbery, prejudice, and academic elitism.


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## nino_savatte (Aug 13, 2011)

weltweit said:


> And yet, when he is on Question Time, he attacks the tories as well as the rest.
> The man has few allegiances it seems to me.


Nonetheless, Tories like Toby Young feel the need to apologise for him.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/t...starkey-being-racist-on-newsnight-last-night/


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## weltweit (Aug 13, 2011)

roctrevezel said:


> The trouble with Starkey is whatever tiny bit of truth may be buried somewhere in his comments is hidden very deeply under many layers of snobbery, prejudice, and academic elitism.



That is probably true, but when he is on Question Time I at least know there will be some vigourousness and compative spirit in the program. If it were just politicians the program would be dire!


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## weltweit (Aug 13, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> Nonetheless, Tories like Toby Young feel the need to apologise for him.
> http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/t...starkey-being-racist-on-newsnight-last-night/





> Again, if he’s not condemning a culture associated with one particular race in its entirety, but merely condemning a particular sub-culture that’s embraced by blacks and whites alike, then he isn’t, according the OED definition, being racist.





A lot of words.. Anyhow is there evidence that the majority of rioters were white or black gangstas and not just normal young people caught up in the excitement?


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## nino_savatte (Aug 13, 2011)

It's the implication.


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## Luther Blissett (Aug 13, 2011)




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## Luther Blissett (Aug 13, 2011)

I hope we never have to suffer Starkey as a media commentator ever again. Is there a younger bigot that the BBC can wheel out to 'balance' opinion? Toby Young could be a strong contender.


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## nino_savatte (Aug 13, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> I hope we never have to suffer Starkey as a media commentator ever again. Is there a younger bigot that the BBC can wheel out to 'balance' opinion? Toby Young could be a strong contender.


I'm sure Tobesworth would be more than happy to step up. Alternatively, there's Richard Littlejohn.


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## Libertad (Aug 13, 2011)

*Peter Hitchens? Feic, he gets on my tits, so he'll do.*


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## Libertad (Aug 13, 2011)

Huge font not intended ^^^


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## roctrevezel (Aug 13, 2011)

Libertad said:


> *Peter Hitchens? Feic, he gets on my tits, so he'll do.*



Don't forget Kelvin Mackenzie


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## Libertad (Aug 13, 2011)

Who could forget that shittling?


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## Apathy (Aug 13, 2011)

I always enjoy Rod Liddle.  Who wouldnt?


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## Lo Siento. (Aug 13, 2011)

surely that's Starkey done? I mean the whole David Lammy "you could almost think he was white" thing is way beyond the pale.


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## ItWillNeverWork (Aug 13, 2011)

What an  absolute twat. And as for Toby Young hiding behind the OED's definition of 'racism' to claim Starkey wasn't racist, well he can fuck right off, the tiresome pedant. The both of them are self-deluding, intellectuality dishonest cunts.


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## LLETSA (Aug 13, 2011)

Judging by the outrage expressed here, Starkey is achieving what he set out to do. Good points from SW16.


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## ItWillNeverWork (Aug 13, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Judging by the outrage expressed here, Starkey is achieving what he set out to do. Good points from SW16.



Unfortunately our outrage isn't shared by Telegraph readers. Their comments show again the barely hidden fuck-wittery that sits inside them waiting to erupt in a volcanic spasm of utter shite.

Saturday morning are supposed to be relaxing.


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## LLETSA (Aug 13, 2011)

Are you surprised that Telegraph readers don't share your outrage?

Right wingers always take seriously their professional clowns. Privately, Starkey probably has nothing but contempt for knee-jerk reactionaries. He's a parody of one himself, after all.


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## ItWillNeverWork (Aug 13, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Are you surprised that Telegraph readers don't share your outrage?
> 
> Right wingers always take seriously their professional clowns. Privately, Starkey probably has nothing but contempt for knee-jerk reactionaries. He's a parody of one himself, after all.



Nope, not surprised at all. Disappointed though.


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## LLETSA (Aug 13, 2011)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> Nope, not surprised at all. Disappointed though.



One day, Telegraph readers will all be won to communism.


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## Treacle Toes (Aug 13, 2011)

Lo Siento. said:


> surely that's Starkey done? I mean the whole David Lammy "you could almost think he was white" thing *is way beyond the pale*.



Interesting turn of phrase.

Starkey's suggestion was offensive, inaccurate and has it's basis in a racist, White supremicist narrative. I don't care if he is aware of that or not, he is a disgrace.


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## rekil (Aug 13, 2011)

Stoat Boy said:


> True dat.
> 
> But you aint going to employ them if they cannot express themselves in a clear and articulate manner, no matter what *there* accent.


Or their spelling.


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## DotCommunist (Aug 13, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> One day, Telegraph readers will all be won to communism.


 
This mass conversion will come when they are in the internment camps


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## Treacle Toes (Aug 13, 2011)

Just had a White friend call Starkey a 'bumberclaart' on my FB page. I told him to wash his mouth out with soap. I suppose that makes me White and him Black?


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## little_legs (Aug 13, 2011)




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## sw16 (Aug 13, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


>




Quaint.





What's the message now?


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## toblerone3 (Aug 13, 2011)

Lo Siento. said:


> surely that's Starkey done? I mean the whole David Lammy "you could almost think he was white" thing is way beyond the pale.



Why do you think that particular comment is "beyond the pale" ?  I'm not sure about this whole Starkey is finished argument. Isn't it in fact completely "within the pale". The BBC invite David Starkey to interviews such as this precisely because he is reliably controversial.


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## littlebabyjesus (Aug 13, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Judging by the outrage expressed here, Starkey is achieving what he set out to do. Good points from SW16.



You reckon? you reckon he said these things to get a reaction from people like U75 posters?

I think you're way off the mark. What he said, and the fact that he wasn't properly pulled up for it, shows the racists that it's ok to be racist out loud now. The riots have made it ok. 'Look, I'm doing it on tv, and it's ok.'


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## Stoat Boy (Aug 13, 2011)

sw16 said:


> What's the message now?



Well from that last video I would make the assumption that a young man by the name of 'Spider' should not be expecting many Christmas cards from that charming bunch of chaps and chicks.


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## DotCommunist (Aug 13, 2011)

sw16 said:


> Quaint.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## toblerone3 (Aug 13, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> Starkey's suggestion was offensive, inaccurate and has it's basis in a racist, White supremicist narrative. I don't care if he is aware of that or not, he is a disgrace.



Is subconscious intellectual racism enough to get you banned from tv though?


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## sw16 (Aug 13, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


>




Also pretty quaint to be honest. Not going to hear that rattling mobile phone speakers on the skunk-smoke stinking top deck of a bus. Skinnyman has no credibility to your average kid on the street. He doesn't reflect or influence the mindset of the youth right now in the streets of London, same as Grandmaster Flash or the Sugarhill Gang. This is what I meant about thinking about what Rap actually means _to you_ versus the reality, on the "roads", right now. If you can find anything positive, anything at all, in those three videos I just put up, then I'm amazed.


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 13, 2011)

Red Storm said:


> Starkey enjoys being the most controversial and unpleasant person on TV. Like agricola said he is a troll.



He'll probably get at least a week's worth of wanks out of this one.


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## DotCommunist (Aug 13, 2011)

Of course there isn't positivity there. Thats the bloody point- the expression is not the dynamic


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## cantsin (Aug 13, 2011)

Libertad said:


> *Peter Hitchens? Feic, he gets on my tits, so he'll do.*



Hitchens has a proper, steely-lunatic core, he'd eat Starkey alive, if the , uh situation arose. Like Bill O Reilly .


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## smokedout (Aug 13, 2011)

sw16 said:


> If you can find anything positive, anything at all, in those three videos I just put up, then I'm amazed.



with daft parents running round grassing up their kids i think the last one contains an important message


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## littlebabyjesus (Aug 13, 2011)

This really smacks of the moral panic in the US about heavy metal turning kids into devil worshipers. It's balls, frankly, as an explanation of virtually anything, let alone the riots.


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## story (Aug 13, 2011)

toblerone3 said:


> Why do you think that particular comment is "beyond the pale" ? I'm not sure about this whole Starkey is finished argument. Isn't it in fact completely "within the pale". The BBC invite David Starkey to interviews such as this precisely because he is reliably controversial.



The problem is that many people will agree with Starkey on this point.

Language accent and dialect has always been a tool of voluntary and involuntary exclusivity: Cockney rhyming slang, butcher's backslang and Pig Latin are examples of voluntary exclusion, when people adopt or develop a particular way of speaking in order to exclude those outside their circle. Pidgin or Creole (wherever it arises) is an attempt at inclusivity amongst people of disparate cultures/ origins.

Patois - whether it be Jamaican or Gangsta or London "yoot" (which is black and white these days) - is an easy and easily broadcast method of aligning oneself with a particular group, and also to some degree excluding those who are not of one's own group.

So people - especially but not exclusively young'uns - often adopt a chosen accent, patois or vernacular in order to self-identify as... well, whatever. (Posh kids do Mockney: I'm sure their parents hate that)

I know plenty of people who speak standard RP at work or in shops and who also slip very easily - even unconsciously - into a variety of different vernaculars, dialects, patois and accents as and when circumstances arise. I see this as a richness of available options and diversity.

Of course there are also people (at the very top and the very bottom of the class ladder) who are trapped by their inability to switch or modify the way they speak; Starkey seems to be one of these.

And I suspect that those who feel excluded by, fearful of or hateful towards those cultures and groups that are associated with whatever patois is being spoken will applaud Starkey loudly.

One other thing: a young Black friend of mine of West Indian descent who was raised in South London has found that if he wants to be accepted at work, he has to mimic a white middle class sensibility. He has realised that, as a Black man with a South London accent, he is assumed to be Ghetto or Gangsta. How shit is that? But it seems to illustrate that Starkey is apparently articulating a generally held sensibility.


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## Treacle Toes (Aug 13, 2011)

I don't think Starkey is a troll. He believes what he said and cares not who is outraged/offended. His discourse says a lot about the 'elitest' values that dominate. Slang has always existed. One significant thing about any 'patois' is that it is a blending of language forms/styles etc...it is used to communicate and interact, show group membership and common understanding.


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## Gramsci (Aug 13, 2011)

Santino said:


> Why is "gangsta" culture a problem for poor black communities and not affluent white communities?



Well I live in Brixton and there is a problem with drug related crime. Drug dealing can be highly profitable. As in other areas that have poor communities drug dealing can be seen as a way to get status and money.


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## nino_savatte (Aug 13, 2011)

little_legs said:


>




His analysis is desperately threadbare. Starkey is an imperialist and, without wishing to sound like a member of the RCG, imperialism and racism make excellent bedfellows. As Jamie's Dream School showed us, he's a man who is out of touch with the contemporary world.


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## Treacle Toes (Aug 13, 2011)

Santino said:


> Why is "gangsta" culture a problem for poor black communities and not affluent white communities?



Because middle class drug dealers are never refered to as _gangsters_.


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## story (Aug 13, 2011)

It's worth noting that white w/c gangster culture is also celebrated: The Great Train Robbers, Lock Stock and..., the Krays, those endless TV shows about gangs and hard men etc.

But these types are often portrayed as lovable honourable rogues.


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## Gramsci (Aug 13, 2011)

Stoat Boy said:


> Urban culture innit ? Thats the problem. And the language thing is important. There is a segment of our society who speak in such a way that nobody with even a modicum of commercial sense would let them deal with customers.



What Starkey didnt say was that people can speak more than one dialect. In Brixton people from Jamaica will speak to me in standard English and to each there own dialect. Starkey simplifies peoples relationship with language. 

He is right to say that there a slang that is used by people who have never been to Jamaica.


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## sw16 (Aug 13, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> Of course there isn't positivity there. Thats the bloody point- the expression is not the dynamic



If you think you see a true expression of British urban dissatisfaction, you'd be sorely mistaken.

Take a look, what do you see and hear: American-style gang colours. American fashion. American slang. The influences of a moneymaking American-imported media product and its associated lifestyle, all courtesy of that latest opiate of the masses: COMMERCIAL MASS MEDIA

A colonisation of the mind has occurred. Good traditional Carribbean, African, Asian, cockney cultures have been discarded by the youth, replaced by this bullshit. There is nothing real about it. It's a plastic, American, moneymaking fantasy.

It is not an expression of the real world. It merely feeds a poisonous culture.


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## story (Aug 13, 2011)

Gramsci said:


> *What Starkey didnt say was that people can speak more than one dialect*. In Brixton people from Jamaica will speak to me in standard English and to each there own dialect. Starkey simplifies peoples relationship with language.
> 
> He is right to say that there a slang that is used by people who have never been to Jamaica.



He didn't say it because he has no idea.

(btw, Did you not read my tl/dr post above )


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## rekil (Aug 13, 2011)

sw16 said:


> cockney cultures


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## sw16 (Aug 13, 2011)

story said:


> It's worth noting that white w/c gangster culture is also celebrated: The Great Train Robbers, Lock Stock and..., the Krays, those endless TV shows about gangs and hard men etc.
> 
> But these types are often portrayed as lovable honourable rogues.



They are always portrayed as "pulling capers" - ie. bank heist - rather than gunning each other down over drug money/turf. Taking money from the rich. Leaving "civilians" alone. Not neighbourhood warlords who terrorise their peers, their own communities. This is white folks' safe, more conscionable version of gangsta rap. I think it may all have some function as a way of people getting antisocial impulses out of their system in a safe and inconsequential way. But unfortunately the youth see it as a desirable lifestyle, something to emulate.

This debate always leads to endless chicken-or-egging.


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## Gramsci (Aug 13, 2011)

story said:


> He didn't say it because he has no idea.
> 
> (btw, Did you not read my tl/dr post above )



Just read it. Maybe hadnt come up on boards whilst i was checking other pages. Yes I think ur spot on.


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## DotCommunist (Aug 13, 2011)

sw16 said:


> If you think you see a true expression of British urban dissatisfaction, you'd be sorely mistaken.
> 
> Take a look, what do you see and hear: American-style gang colours. American fashion. American slang. The influences of a moneymaking American-imported media product and its associated lifestyle, all courtesy of that latest opiate of the masses: COMMERCIAL MASS MEDIA
> 
> ...



what did I say? The expression is not the dynamic. If you want to bemoan us cultural hegemony of even working class cultures then fine, I won't be far behind in agreeing with you. But it is the expression, currently. Yearn for the days of two tone and punk all we like- that's quaint


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## Fedayn (Aug 13, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> Interesting turn of phrase.



Indeed, after all neither Starkey nor Lo Siento were talking about Ireland or  Russia where the phrase originates.


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## story (Aug 13, 2011)

sw16 said:


> They are always portrayed as "pulling capers" - ie. bank heist - rather than gunning each other down over drug money/turf. Taking money from the rich. Leaving "civilians" alone. Not neighbourhood warlords who terrorise their peers, their own communities. This is white folks' safe, more conscionable version of gangsta rap. I think it may all have some function as a way of people getting antisocial impulses out of their system in a safe and inconsequential way. But unfortunately the youth see it as a desirable lifestyle, something to emulate.
> 
> This debate always leads to endless chicken-or-egging.



The films show them pulling capers, yes.

But that's wrong, isn't it: we all know that the violence and abuse that those white gangs meted out on their communities was pretty bad. The fact that the associated culture was portrayed as desirable and even aspirational in them days when it was all current makes it similar to the way Black gang culture is portrayed now.

All that 60s and 70s bling - casinos, saucy or flashy women, the tailored suits, cocktails, heavy watches etc. - all of that was happening in a time of comparative austerity. Now that we live in a culture that is dripping with excess, the same sensibility (gangs make you rich and powerful) has to be even more flashy and excessive.


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 13, 2011)

Santino said:


> Why is "gangsta" culture a problem for poor black communities and not affluent white communities?


Because for affluent white communities (in the eyes of Starkey and his ilk) it's an infection that can be treated. Starkey doesn't have much of a grasp at just how slippery cunltural hybridity is. Often the harder you fight against it, the faster it happens.


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## littlebabyjesus (Aug 13, 2011)

@sw16

I don't see the same thing as you. That middle video that you posted is just in the X vs Y tradition of boasting to each other about how 'bad' you are. They think it's cool to pose in their video with a bottle of Dragon stout and a spliff while playing 'air handgun'. It's quite touchingly innocent, really.

You're looking in the wrong places for the source of social problems. I see a lot of older people just not understanding the culture of the generation behind them. I'm sure all the same things were said about punk, but this time there's an added layer of racism for the likes of Starkey to frame their fearful moral panic around.


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## sw16 (Aug 13, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> what did I say? The expression is not the dynamic. If you want to bemoan us cultural hegemony of even working class cultures then fine, I won't be far behind in agreeing with you. But it is the expression, currently. Yearn for the days of two tone and punk all we like- that's quaint



I don't really give a shit about two tone and punk.

My point is: they are merely parroting what they've heard in American rap music, a commercial product sold to them. Thus portraying UK estates as US housing projects, and trying to turn their communities into America's VASTLY more unequal, VASTLY more violent slums when the reality is rather different. Living out some awful fantasy. Because it's fashionable.

We've seen a huge upswing in London street gangs over the last 20 years or so. But quality of life has, for the most part, improved. We don't have any favelas, we don't have any ghettos, vast areas of very real and grinding poverty, like the Americans do. So why's this happened?


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 13, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> It's ok, cameron is importing some celebrity copper from the USA to break gang culture. This bloke is supposed to have broken the gang culture in LA and Boston. Yeah!



Bill Bratton? He hasn't done anything of the sort, whatever his claims. Criminologists have a bit of a hard-on for Bratton, so a lot of his initiatives get analysed. Bratton was a great proponent of Chuck Wilson's "Broken Windows" theory, but he also presided over a couple of "zero tolerance" regimes that were effectively racist (they used racial profiling to direct resources) and left innocents dead.


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## littlebabyjesus (Aug 13, 2011)

While American rap certainly is a commercial product sold to people, it is also a cultural product. Are you sure you're not just reacting badly to it because you personally don't like it and can't understand why anyone would like it?

In the US, heavy metal was a UK commercial product that was sold to them, which US bands then started to parrot, but without the context of the grim Midlands estates in which heavy metal was born. And there was a moral panic there about its influence too.

All this stuff just seems like a distraction to me from the real issues. The real issue for any government wishing to tackle this is money and its redistribution. We have people whose education cost hundreds of thousands of pounds preaching morality at people who have only a tiny fraction of that spent on theirs. That's the problem - and talk of gangs, 'black culture', single mums, drugs, lack of school discipline, and all the other social ills that are symptoms of that problem is just a distraction.


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## sw16 (Aug 13, 2011)

story said:


> The films show them pulling capers, yes.
> 
> But that's wrong, isn't it: we all know that the violence and abuse that those white gangs meted out on their communities was pretty bad. The fact that the associated culture was portrayed as desirable and even aspirational in them days when it was all current makes it similar to the way Black gang culture is portrayed now.
> 
> All that 60s and 70s bling - casinos, saucy or flashy women, the tailored suits, cocktails, heavy watches etc. - all of that was happening in a time of comparative austerity. Now that we live in a culture that is dripping with excess, the same sensibility (gangs make you rich and powerful) has to be even more flashy and excessive.



So the only conclusion that I can find is that it is commercialism itself and late capitalism's media-fuelled unsustainable excesses of greed that are at the core of it all.


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## sw16 (Aug 13, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> While American rap certainly is a commercial product sold to people, it is also a cultural product. Are you sure you're not just reacting badly to it because you personally don't like it and can't understand why anyone would like it?
> 
> In the US, heavy metal was a UK commercial product that was sold to them, which US bands then started to parrot, but without the context of the grim Midlands estates in which heavy metal was born. And there was a moral panic there about its influence too.



On the contrary: I've been listening to hiphop/rap, and latterly Grime, for my entire life. I'm under 30. So I've had a good long time to get to grips with it all, to push nagging doubts to the back of my mind, even come to analyse exactly the transgressive pleasure that makes a lot of it so appealing, and finally come to this conclusion after putting aside all the "expression of real lives" rubbish. It may have started off that way. Some of it does have that quality. But what I am seeing now, coming from the streets of London, is VERY different.


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## sunnysidedown (Aug 13, 2011)

Fuck this shit, almost exactly 20 years ago today there were riots in North Shields (north uk), kicked off by the death of 2 joyriders, the local community came out and burnt down and looted every shop on the estate. 
And I'll tell you something else, no one on these boards would of understood a word those fuckers said, hard core Geordies, and as white as your sheets.

Fuck all the southern liberal racist cunts.


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## Dr Dolittle (Aug 13, 2011)

Whether David Starkey really means what he says or is just winding us up, what he said was still offensive. It's a long time since I've heard racism expressed quite so explicitly, and most racism these days is directed towards Muslims rather than black people. (Yes, I know the Muslims aren't a race, but you know what I mean.)

As for the lyrics of Gangsta rap, I'm surprised no one here has yet compared it to Punk. That caused moral panic, because the establishment listened to the words ('I wanna destroy' etc) and took it literally, whereas most of us knew it was just rhetoric. However, I accept that a lot of rap lyrics are a lot nastier and more personal than punk lyrics, explicitly homophobic and misogenistic. If there's any connection between that and the riots, it's not a direct one. It just reflects, as people like Peter Oborne said (see separate thread on this), the nastiness that has filtered down from the establishment - the 'greed is good' kind of culture.


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## littlebabyjesus (Aug 13, 2011)

Dr Dolittle said:


> W
> 
> As for the lyrics of Gangsta rap, I'm surprised no one here has yet compared it to Punk.


post 117


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 13, 2011)

sw16 said:


> I don't really give a shit about two tone and punk.
> 
> My point is: they are merely parroting what they've heard in American rap music, a commercial product sold to them.



Was black working class youth nihilism non-existent before rap? Wasn't it articulated in some of the excellent reggae produced in the days before (and after) rap?

Reggae wasn't and isn't all "Jah peace and love". You're trying to position rap as a unitary influence when what it actually is, is merely one of several modes of articulation, even for urban black British youth in gangs.



> Thus portraying UK estates as US housing projects, and trying to turn their communities into America's VASTLY more unequal, VASTLY more violent slums when the reality is rather different. Living out some awful fantasy. Because it's fashionable.



Mmm, you'd have to be intellectually-incapable of differentiating between fantasy and reality to do that, fashionable (I fucking hate that word, it's even worse than "trendy") or not.

I think it's more accurate to say that some people will relate their own passage through life and travails to the fictions they see presented to them, especially in terms of nihilism. They're not trying to turn their own neighbourhoods into Cabrini Green or the like - they can't. The same structural issues don't pertain. Why do they relate to these fictions? Why does anyone? Often because they afford comfort that you're not alone, that what you're doing has (even if it's spurious) validity.



> We've seen a huge upswing in London street gangs over the last 20 years or so. But quality of life has, for the most part, improved. We don't have any favelas, we don't have any ghettos, vast areas of very real and grinding poverty, like the Americans do. So why's this happened?



How do you measure "quality of life"? What metric are *you* using?


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## DotCommunist (Aug 13, 2011)

sw16 said:


> I don't really give a shit about two tone and punk.
> 
> My point is: they are merely parroting what they've heard in American rap music, a commercial product sold to them. Thus portraying UK estates as US housing projects, and trying to turn their communities into America's VASTLY more unequal, VASTLY more violent slums when the reality is rather different. Living out some awful fantasy. Because it's fashionable.
> 
> We've seen a huge upswing in London street gangs over the last 20 years or so. But quality of life has, for the most part, improved. We don't have any favelas, we don't have any ghettos, vast areas of very real and grinding poverty, like the Americans do. So why's this happened?



so you have the cart before the horse. Right-o.

poverty is relative btw


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## story (Aug 13, 2011)

sw16 said:


> So the only conclusion that I can find is that it is commercialism itself and late capitalism's media-fuelled unsustainable excesses of greed that are at the core of it all.



Yes, that, but also social and personal loss of status, a recognised poverty of opportunity, acceptance that one's access to change is diminished, wanting to provide for one's family, an inherently human competitiveness, fear of appearing weak ... so many other factors.


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 13, 2011)

Apathy said:


> I always enjoy Rod Liddle. Who wouldnt?



Only when his chestnuts are roasting on an open fire.


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## story (Aug 13, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Was black working class youth nihilism non-existent before rap? Wasn't it articulated in some of the excellent reggae produced in the days before (and after) rap?
> 
> Reggae wasn't and isn't all "Jah peace and love". You're trying to position rap as a unitary influence when what it actually is, is merely one of several modes of articulation, even for urban black British youth in gangs.
> 
> ...


 
Everyone does this, regardless of what their origins. Public schoolboys beating each other up to The Jam's Eton Rifles, young Londoners prancing about to Adam And The Ants' ersatz Native American rally cries... (I'm sure there are more recent examples!)


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 13, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> Because middle class drug dealers are never refered to as _gangsters_.



They're to be referred to as "entrepreneurs", I believe.


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## sw16 (Aug 13, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Reggae wasn't and isn't all "Jah peace and love". You're trying to position rap as a unitary influence when what it actually is, is merely one of several modes of articulation, even for urban black British youth in gangs.



It is overwhelmingly the most prominent. Even the most popular reggae music on the streets is that which is strongly influenced by gangsta rap: dancehall reggae, which contains as much materialism, homophobia, macho posturing, and glorification of violence and criminality.



ViolentPanda said:


> Mmm, you'd have to be intellectually-incapable of differentiating between fantasy and reality to do that, fashionable (I fucking hate that word, it's even worse than "trendy") or not.



Gangsta rap is utterly anti-intellectual. It discourages a questioning mind, questioning of its own narratives. Drop out of college and become a drug dealer. Be a school bully, because the bullies are the strong. Don't read books, that's for wimps and "neeks".



ViolentPanda said:


> Why do they relate to these fictions? Why does anyone? Often because they afford comfort that you're not alone, that what you're doing has (even if it's spurious) validity.



We have allowed damaging fictions to fill a hole, then, with a lack of anything more appealing to relate to. Fashion DOES play a part in it, though.



ViolentPanda said:


> How do you measure "quality of life"? What metric are *you* using?



You've got me bang to rights on that one.


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## littlebabyjesus (Aug 13, 2011)

Nihilism can be a rite of passage, can't it? I had my own version when I was young - reading Celine and Hubert Selby Jnr, listening to Death in June and Coil. I would wallow in absolutely nihilistic lyrics.

It's normal for teenagers to experience a spell of nihilism as they realise that the world is a fucked up place, but have yet to work out a way to accommodate that fact into their worldview.


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 13, 2011)

story said:


> Everyone does this, regardless of what their origins. Public schoolboys beating each other up to The Jam's Eton Rifles, young Londoners prancing about to Adam And The Ants' ersatz Native American rally cries... (I'm sure there are more recent examples!)



Absolutely. Part of youth culture _per se_ is about identifying with and *through* the music contemporary to you, and anyone who thinks that the majority of the buyers and listeners, even in the UK, of so-called "gangsta rap" aren't white and middle-class, but are actually young black working-class "desperados", or that they actually interpollate so deeply with the music that they overlay the projected message on their reality, is frankly on one.


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## DotCommunist (Aug 13, 2011)

You're making valid criticisms of the lyrical content of music- you aren't showing me how this has led people into living an imported ghetto culture with no reason to do so- you aren't showing me that the dynamic of relative poverty and social alienation is not present. You're tutting about the expression


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## sunnysidedown (Aug 13, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Nihilism can be a rite of passage, can't it? I had my own version when I was young - reading Celine and Hubert Selby Jnr, listening to Death in June and Coil. I would wallow in absolutely nihilistic lyrics.
> 
> It's normal for teenagers to experience a spell of nihilism as they realise that the world is a fucked up place, but have yet to work out a way to accommodate that fact into their worldview.



There is nothing nihilistic about Coil.


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## laptop (Aug 13, 2011)

> Dr Starkey tried to convince students their brains are the most important thing about themselves.
> 
> He compared it to the way many worry about their faces or go to the gym to ‘work out their pecs’.
> 
> ...



Conor puts his finger on Starkey's problem?


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## sw16 (Aug 13, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> You're making valid criticisms of the lyrical content of music- you aren't showing me how this has led people into living an imported ghetto culture with no reason to do so- you aren't showing me that the dynamic of relative poverty and social alienation is not present. You're tutting about the expression



Brainwashed by commercial mass media. Ghetto narratives, pictures of a false or faraway world, drummed into their heads repeatedly.


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## sunnysidedown (Aug 13, 2011)

There was plenty of riots in the north 20 years ago, the sound of rave and hardcore providing a soundtrack, and an accent unique to that particular estate. 

But don't let that distract you...


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## littlebabyjesus (Aug 13, 2011)

sunnysidedown said:


> There is nothing nihilistic about Coil.


I disagree, not that this really matters. You don't need lyrics to be nihilistic, imo. I think music can have a nihilistic sensibility to it.

Thing is, I see nothing wrong with nihilistic art. Some very good art has been totally nihilistic. Art isn't there to tell us how to live or provide role models - it is there to make us _feel_ things. That's all.


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## sw16 (Aug 13, 2011)

sunnysidedown said:


> There was plenty of riots in the north 20 years ago, the sound of rave and hardcore providing a soundtrack, and an accent unique to that particular estate.
> 
> But don't let that distract you...



Interested to know how strong the capitalist element was, how much looting relative to overall violence, damage, whether reasons actually given by anyone, any spokespeople, etc. I'm pretty ignorant on this subject, so please tell me.


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## weltweit (Aug 13, 2011)

laptop said:


> Conor puts his finger on Starkey's problem?



The head of dream school read the riot act to Starkey about that saying it was totally unacceptable to speak to students that way. It was interesting to me because some of the lecturers I respected the most were ones who kept tight discipline in their classes, where necessary by intimidating unruly students and making fun of them. So that is not permitted now I wondered how lecturers could maintain discipline over a class of 30 18 year olds.


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 13, 2011)

sw16 said:


> If you think you see a true expression of British urban dissatisfaction, you'd be sorely mistaken.
> 
> Take a look, what do you see and hear: American-style gang colours. American fashion. American slang. The influences of a moneymaking American-imported media product and its associated lifestyle, all courtesy of that latest opiate of the masses: COMMERCIAL MASS MEDIA



So you've taken note of US cultural imperialism and how it swamps "native" cultures? Good for you. It's been doing that for at least a hundred years, though, and commentators throughout the last century have made the same "shock!! Horror!!!" analyses as you're doing.



> A colonisation of the mind has occurred. Good traditional Carribbean, African, Asian, cockney cultures have been discarded by the youth, replaced by this bullshit. There is nothing real about it. It's a plastic, American, moneymaking fantasy.



Culture is a fluid field, it's ability to hybridise is amazing, and if you think that "native" cultures have been discarded in favour of a monolithic US-centric culture, then you're either dreaming, or you have access to some rather thorough cultural research that hasn't yet been released to the world.
Yes, I hear kids using US-slang, but I still, living on a council estate just up the road from Lambeth town hall, hear a shedload more "native" slang from the baggy-arsed wastrels that congregate on every available bit of wall or grass round here, and most of them appear to listen to an even mix of home-grown music and imported stuff.

I can see you're trying o make a point, but claiming that US "gang" and "gangsta" culture has killed UK culture is, to get academic about, it, a load of fucking big sweaty bollocks.



> It is not an expression of the real world. It merely feeds a poisonous culture.



So did "rock 'n' roll", "free jazz", "hard rock", "reggae" and a thousand other musical cultures, at least as far as some contemporary commentators would have "us" believe.


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## sunnysidedown (Aug 13, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I disagree, not that this really matters. You don't need lyrics to be nihilistic, imo. I think music can have a nihilistic sensibility to it.



Coil were a celebration of love, in all it's forms, they were certainly not nihilistic. But this is not the thread to discuss such things.


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## DotCommunist (Aug 13, 2011)

sw16 said:


> Brainwashed by commercial mass media. Ghetto narratives, pictures of a false or faraway world, drummed into their heads repeatedly.



are you sure people are so dumb as that- I'll give you the wider point on commercialised aspirations but that falls into dynamic, driver. People aren't ghettoised through listening to music that tells them they are. That is very dodgy ground that credits people with zero intelligence. You can talk about how media perceptions and on the ground realities diverge to create a sense of dissonance for the working class youth- and even that the music and imported culture give expression to that. But you can't claim they are living a fantasy land of deprivation- it is real enough. Again, you are tutting.


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## weltweit (Aug 13, 2011)

It was obvious as soon as Starkey mentioned the Enoch Powell Rivers of Blood speech that he was going to be controversial though I have listenned to that speech myself and find some sympathy with Powell's rant against multiculty.

He went on to say "Chavs have become black and Violent destructive nihilistic gangster culture become fashion" I don't think it helps his argument to use a blanket term "black" which addresses a whole large group of people when he actually seems to mean black gang culture.

Then he says this odd thing "Whites have become black" such an unfortunate turn of phrase when one is supposed to be discussing rioting. As if all blacks riot and no whites except those that have become black riot. His command of english seems to be letting him down, or perhaps he just does not care how many people he offends.

"David Lamy, on radio would think he was white?" there are lots of people for whom one cannot tell their origins by the sound of their voice, I think this is highly dubious. Why should we be able to tell the colour of someone's skin by how they talk?

"Rap glorifies violence on the street" does it?

"No public buildings were attacked" is that significant?

"These people feel excluded, they can't get jobs, they are searched by police.." now perhaps we are getting somewhere, Starkey said that black gang culture is very anti education and for that reason it is bad. 

Not rioting - "Shopping with violence"


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## story (Aug 13, 2011)

sw16 said:


> On the contrary: I've been listening to hiphop/rap, and latterly Grime, for my entire life. I'm under 30. So I've had a good long time to get to grips with it all, to push nagging doubts to the back of my mind, even come to analyse exactly the transgressive pleasure that makes a lot of it so appealing, and finally come to this conclusion after putting aside all the "expression of real lives" rubbish. It may have started off that way. Some of it does have that quality. But what I am seeing now, coming from the streets of London, is VERY different.



I'm curious to know what you feel you gain by or enjoy in this music?

You seem to be an aficionado, but by your own remarks you seem to exclude yourself from the circle of young'uns who listen to it and are -as you seem to be saying - either negatively affected by it or find it a source of forceful expression of their own experiences.

Are you in a minority who is able to discern the difference between the reality and the rhetoric? Or are you in fact more typical than you assume?


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## littlebabyjesus (Aug 13, 2011)

sunnysidedown said:


> Coil were a celebration of love, in all it's forms, they were certainly not nihilistic. But this is not the thread to discuss such things.


To a frustrated, nihilistic 18-year-old virgin, they weren't a celebration of love! But perhaps I was projecting.


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## sw16 (Aug 13, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> So you've taken note of US cultural imperialism and how it swamps "native" cultures? Good for you. It's been doing that for at least a hundred years, though, and commentators throughout the last century have made the same "shock!! Horror!!!" analyses as you're doing.



Well, I'm sorry, I'm not a long-standing socialist academic, I'm just a guy who's had a bit of a revelation recently and is using whatever meagre learning he has to try and make sense of it.



ViolentPanda said:


> Culture is a fluid field, it's ability to hybridise is amazing, and if you think that "native" cultures have been discarded in favour of a monolithic US-centric culture, then you're either dreaming, or you have access to some rather thorough cultural research that hasn't yet been released to the world.
> Yes, I hear kids using US-slang, but I still, living on a council estate just up the road from Lambeth town hall, hear a shedload more "native" slang from the baggy-arsed wastrels that congregate on every available bit of wall or grass round here, and most of them appear to listen to an even mix of home-grown music and imported stuff.
> 
> I can see you're trying o make a point, but claiming that US "gang" and "gangsta" culture has killed UK culture is, to get academic about, it, a load of fucking big sweaty bollocks.



Native slang has been assimilated into it, to make the transition more fluid. Same way that kids now listen to UK gangsta rap rather than US but the one is merely a low-budget copy of the other, parroting the same cliches.

There may be bits of patois, bits of working class white slang, and so on, but the worldview, the overall framework, is US gangsta rap culture. "Gotta hustle to survive" / "gotta be the big man on the block".


----------



## sunnysidedown (Aug 13, 2011)

sw16 said:


> Interested to know how strong the capitalist element was, how much looting relative to overall violence, damage, whether reasons actually given by anyone, any spokespeople, etc. I'm pretty ignorant on this subject, so please tell me.



The Medowell Riots kicked off when the police ran a car off the road killing 2 teenage joyriders.

The riots themselves saw pretty much everyone off the estate attacking the police, looting and burning down the local shops and youth club, along with the local electricity substation.

These riots spread to the west end of Newcastle, an area traditionally against the east end (criminal families, football and gangs, north shields being east).

But to answer your question, those in the east looted & destroyed everything they could, those in the west tried to do the same.


----------



## Poo Flakes (Aug 13, 2011)

Love the Toby Young quote...



> Again, if he’s not condemning a culture associated with one particular race in its entirety, but merely condemning a particular sub-culture that’s embraced by blacks and whites alike, then he isn’t, according the OED definition, being racist.



If you ever need to say _"Well, according to the OED definition, I was not being racist" _you were probably being racist.



> You're looking in the wrong places for the source of social problems.



Let me guarantee you that for the next ten years any truly insightful work that will try and understand the causes of rioting will be buried under a series of academic papers, government reports, newspaper articles, and debates filled with tautologies (crime is committed by criminals), inanaties (we spoke with community (i.e. future Labour and Tory MPs representing old people)), truisms ("the problem is complex"), rhetoric (Big Society, responsibility), a bit of nationalism (we need to celebrate the British spirit that came together after the riots), all masking a belief, that we all share, that the future will sort itself out.


----------



## Belushi (Aug 13, 2011)

sw16 said:


> Well, I'm sorry, I'm not a long-standing socialist academic, I'm just a guy who's had a bit of a revelation recently and is using whatever meagre learning he has to try and make sense of it.



Welcome aboard! Debate gets a bit robust around here at times, don't let that put you off


----------



## Belushi (Aug 13, 2011)

Poo Flakes said:


> Love the Toby Young quote...
> 
> If you ever need to say _"Well, according to the OED definition, I was not being racist" _you were probably being racist.



Spot on, it's up there with 'I'm not a racist but...'

Welcome aboard too!


----------



## sw16 (Aug 13, 2011)

story said:


> I'm curious to know what you feel you gain by or enjoy in this music?
> 
> You seem to be an aficionado, but by your own remarks you seem to exclude yourself from the circle of young'uns who listen to it and are -as you seem to be saying - either negatively affected by it or find it a source of forceful expression of their own experiences.
> 
> Are you in a minority who is able to discern the difference between the reality and the rhetoric? Or are you in fact more typical than you assume?



Well, I'm a grown man now, and I've had time to see the world how it really is, come to my senses. And when I was growing up, this culture hadn't reached the excesses that it has now and become as prevalent. The stuff I used to listen to when I was 15 sounds like Grandmaster Flash in comparison. The kids with knives were wearing nike hoodies and baseball caps, not tying gang-colour bandanas around their faces.

I really, truly fear for the 12 year olds who are letting this kind of stuff shape their young minds and worldviews.


----------



## story (Aug 13, 2011)

sw16 said:


> Well, I'm sorry, I'm not a long-standing socialist academic, I'm just a guy who's had a bit of a revelation recently and is using whatever meagre learning he has to try and make sense of it.
> 
> Native slang has been assimilated into it, to make the transition more fluid. Same way that kids now listen to UK gangsta rap rather than US but the one is merely a low-budget copy of the other, parroting the same cliches.
> 
> There may be bits of patois, bits of working class white slang, and so on, but the worldview, the overall framework, is US gangsta rap culture. *"Gotta hustle to survive" / "gotta be the big man on the block"*.



Might that be because it makes some kinds of sense? Like a cliche is a cliche because it's true?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 13, 2011)

sw16 said:


> It is overwhelmingly the most prominent. Even the most popular reggae music on the streets is that which is strongly influenced by gangsta rap: dancehall reggae, which contains as much materialism, homophobia, macho posturing, and glorification of violence and criminality.



Interesting that you chose to elide my opening sentence. 

Oh, and as you're a youngster, I'll let you off , but dancehall  pre-dates "gangsta" rap (although not with rap itself as a musical genre). Take it from someone who was there at the time!
Oh, and the "macho posturing" etc in Dancehall were/are an element in *some* of it. Your attempts to present both dancehall and gangsta rap as entirely barren of any redeeming features smells very much of a thesis being cooked.



> Gangsta rap is utterly anti-intellectual. It discourages a questioning mind, questioning of its own narratives. Drop out of college and become a drug dealer. Be a school bully, because the bullies are the strong. Don't read books, that's for wimps and "neeks".



Yes, because that's all any of it says, isn't it? There's nothing about resistance or pride or solidarity there, just the relentless hate-fest you're presenting it as.

Can you give me an "intellectually-dishonest", brothers and sisters?








> We have allowed damaging fictions to fill a hole, then, with a lack of anything more appealing to relate to. Fashion DOES play a part in it, though.



Do you have an inkling of how culture flows, how it hybridises and colonises, and how such flows can be manipulated? Of course holes have been filled. The world of Capital spends its efforts actively searching for holes to fill, and when another, more potentially profitable, "filler" comes along, that'll be deployed, and the CD makers and bandanna weavers will change their stock to match. As for fashion, of course it plays a part, but merely stating that something is "fashionable" doesn't elucidate reason or intent, does it, just as saying something is "trendy" doesn't.



> You've got me bang to rights on that one.



I'm a cunt like that.


----------



## story (Aug 13, 2011)

sw16 said:


> Well, I'm a grown man now, and I've had time to see the world how it really is, come to my senses. And when I was growing up, this culture hadn't reached the excesses that it has now and become as prevalent. The stuff I used to listen to when I was 15 sounds like Grandmaster Flash in comparison. The kids with knives were wearing nike hoodies and baseball caps, not tying gang-colour bandanas around their faces.
> 
> I really, truly fear for the 12 year olds who are letting this kind of stuff shape their young minds and worldviews.



But it's not just the music is it. It's all over the TV and magazine and newspapers as well. The generalised culture of acquisitiveness and covetousness, the celebrations of superiority, the tendency to resort to warmongering, the "I'm alright Jack" attitude (which, by the way, is a British expression dating back to the early 60s).

Nike, Adidas, Burberry and the rest... they love it and they nurture it.

Certainly hiphip, rap and grime play a part, but in some important ways these forms of expression are merely keeping pace with developing attitudes.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 13, 2011)

sw16 said:


> Well, I'm sorry, I'm not a long-standing socialist academic, I'm just a guy who's had a bit of a revelation recently and is using whatever meagre learning he has to try and make sense of it.



Neither am I. Hasn't stopped me from making sure I know what I'm talking about before I open my cow-like, though. 



> Native slang has been assimilated into it, to make the transition more fluid. Same way that kids now listen to UK gangsta rap rather than US but the one is merely a low-budget copy of the other, parroting the same cliches.
> 
> There may be bits of patois, bits of working class white slang, and so on, but the worldview, the overall framework, is US gangsta rap culture. "Gotta hustle to survive" / "gotta be the big man on the block".



Like I've said, you're attempting to present a thesis. To do so, you need to show that these things occur, not just *claim* that they do. That's something anyone, academic or not, socialist or not, will advise you.


----------



## story (Aug 13, 2011)

sw16 said:


> Well, I'm a grown man now, and I've had time to see the world how it really is, come to my senses. And when I was growing up, this culture hadn't reached the excesses that it has now and become as prevalent. The stuff I used to listen to when I was 15 sounds like Grandmaster Flash in comparison. The kids with knives were wearing nike hoodies and baseball caps, not tying gang-colour bandanas around their faces.
> 
> I really, truly fear for the 12 year olds who are letting this kind of stuff shape their young minds and worldviews.


 
Actually, your superior sniffiness has annoyed me. Why do you think you're more able to properly and objectively consume certain genres, and not accord the same abilities to anyone else?

The culture in which you grew up was disturbing to those who were older than you: twas ever thus. Your elders worried for you just as you worry for those who are younger.

At the time that The Message came out, it sounded disturbing, and worried or confused many people. (btw Anarchy In The UK now sounds pretty tame, but at the time was incendiary. And how about the Bill Grundy thing? )

Things move fast, and they are moving faster all the time. We who are not native young'uns in this foreign land that is the present cannot ever really feel comfortable here: we're always and inevitable playing catch-up.

Some of what you say and see is valid; but you make the mistake of thinking that your contribution to the discussion is the central point, and it's not.


----------



## sw16 (Aug 13, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Interesting that you chose to elide my opening sentence.



When I don't know what to say, I don't say anything.



ViolentPanda said:


> Oh, and as you're a youngster, I'll let you off , but dancehall pre-dates "gangsta" rap (although not with rap itself as a musical genre). Take it from someone who was there at the time!



Early 90s was probably my first exposure.



ViolentPanda said:


> Oh, and the "macho posturing" etc in Dancehall were/are an element in *some* of it. Your attempts to present both dancehall and gangsta rap as entirely barren of any redeeming features smells very much of a thesis being cooked.



Not a thesis, I assure you. I'm an unemployed male with an undergrad degree from an ex-poly (arts, not social science, explaining huge gaps in my thinking), if you're interested. And yeah, I am generalising, but what I mean is what is most popular, what has most street influence (e.g. Mavado is probably most popular dancehall artist right now)



ViolentPanda said:


> Yes, because that's all any of it says, isn't it? There's nothing about resistance or pride or solidarity there, just the relentless hate-fest you're presenting it as.



You don't seem to understand that, for instance in the three clips I presented, we have in the UK a kind of rap that has been distilled down to its most negative form, its worst excesses brought to the fore. I have heard tracks that are literally just two minutes or so of aimless death threats and posturing. Whatever pride and solidarity there is comes out in occasional trite statements like "it's hard out here", almost as an afterthought. And the fans love it. "That track's COLD". It's almost a race to the bottom. I could listen to Public Enemy afterward to CHEER MYSELF UP, FFS.


----------



## sw16 (Aug 13, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Like I've said, you're attempting to present a thesis. To do so, you need to show that these things occur, not just *claim* that they do. That's something anyone, academic or not, socialist or not, will advise you.





story said:


> Some of what you say and see is valid; but you make the mistake of thinking that your contribution to the discussion is the central point, and it's not.



I'm sorry, that's not how I was hoping to come across. I'm just trying to put forward my viewpoint, based upon longtime immersion in these artforms and growing up and living in London


----------



## sw16 (Aug 13, 2011)

story said:


> But it's not just the music is it. It's all over the TV and magazine and newspapers as well. The generalised culture of acquisitiveness and covetousness, the celebrations of superiority, the tendency to resort to warmongering, the "I'm alright Jack" attitude (which, by the way, is a British expression dating back to the early 60s).
> 
> Nike, Adidas, Burberry and the rest... they love it and they nurture it.
> 
> Certainly hiphip, rap and grime play a part, but in some important ways these forms of expression are merely keeping pace with developing attitudes.



I honestly think it is as much a part of the problem as a symptom.


----------



## smmudge (Aug 13, 2011)

sw16 said:


> A colonisation of the mind has occurred. Good traditional Carribbean, African, Asian, cockney cultures have been discarded by the youth, replaced by this bullshit. There is nothing real about it. It's a plastic, American, moneymaking fantasy.
> 
> It is not an expression of the real world. It merely feeds a poisonous culture.



Huh, and when did the likes of you and Starkey become authorities on which languages are "real" and which are "false?". Do you have access to some sort of objective 'real world' without language that you can compare them to  

People have been running round in panic about the effects of mass culture and mass media for many decades now, and none of their predictions have yet come to fruition. Instead it's been shown that communities take a much more active role in the production and consumption of cultural products and the meanings derived from them. It seems to me that people want to blame music, TV, films or whatever in lieu of facing the real social problems they reflect.


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## story (Aug 13, 2011)

dp


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## story (Aug 13, 2011)

sw16 said:


> I'm sorry, that's not how I was hoping to come across. I'm just trying to put forward my viewpoint, based upon longtime immersion in these artforms and growing up and living in London




Ah... You've fallen foul of the Urban ethic. I see that you only joined Urban today. Given that fact, you've done remarkably well so far 

This place will take apart every argument, viewpoint and opinion you've ever entertained. The harder you work to explain or defend it, the more of a target you create.

This is generally a good thing: it forces people to really think about what they're saying (or, alternatively become more swivel-eyed).

Carry on ​


----------



## sunnysidedown (Aug 13, 2011)

sw16 said:


> I'm sorry, that's not how I was hoping to come across. I'm just trying to put forward my viewpoint, based upon longtime immersion in these artforms and growing up and living in London



Maybe you should fuck off some place else then?


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 13, 2011)

sw16 said:


> When I don't know what to say, I don't say anything.
> 
> Early 90s was probably my first exposure.



It all kicked off a little bit before that. 



> Not a thesis, I assure you. I'm an unemployed male with an undergrad degree from an ex-poly (arts, not social science, explaining huge gaps in my thinking), if you're interested. And yeah, I am generalising, but what I mean is what is most popular, what has most street influence (e.g. Mavado is probably most popular dancehall artist right now)
> 
> You don't seem to understand that, for instance in the three clips I presented, we have in the UK a kind of rap that has been distilled down to its most negative form, its worst excesses brought to the fore. I have heard tracks that are literally just two minutes or so of aimless death threats and posturing. Whatever pride and solidarity there is comes out in occasional trite statements like "it's hard out here", almost as an afterthought. And the fans love it. "That track's COLD". It's almost a race to the bottom. I could listen to Public Enemy afterward to CHEER MYSELF UP, FFS.



You're not talking about a totality, though, even though you're presenting it as such, you're talking about a sub-genre of a field of culture whose appeal doesn't even extend to the whole of its' target audience, and your examples aren't random, they're what you've deliberately chosen to illustrate your argument. That's like me attempting to prove that all Heavy Metal is satanic by posting up vids of Danzig, Deicide and Christian Death.

Mind you, I think you're also missing out on a big kick that people get from relentlessly harsh/defeatist/miserable lyrics - The "thank fuck *my* life isn't quite that shit" factor.


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## story (Aug 13, 2011)

story said:


> Ah... You've fallen foul of the Urban ethic. I see that you only joined Urban today. Given that fact, you've done remarkably well so far ​
> This place will take apart every argument, viewpoint and opinion you've ever entertained. The harder you work to explain or defend it, the more of a target you create.​
> This is generally a good thing: it forces people to really think about what they're saying (or, alternatively become more swivel-eyed).​
> Carry on ​





sunnysidedown said:


> Maybe you should fuck off some place else than?


----------



## cantsin (Aug 13, 2011)

smokedout said:


> and there's the rub. they make shit slaves.



lol, well put


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 13, 2011)

sw16 said:


> I'm sorry, that's not how I was hoping to come across. I'm just trying to put forward my viewpoint, based upon longtime immersion in these artforms and growing up and living in London



You're making good points, mate. Just don't expect people not to challenge you if they think you've missed something, or that they think you've got the wrong end of the stick. Arguments can get a bit "robust" here, because a lot of us are opinionated bastards!

Welcome to the mad-house, by the way.


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## sunnysidedown (Aug 13, 2011)

story said:


>



That was referring to his physical position, not his virtual position.


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 13, 2011)

sw16 said:


> I'm sorry, that's not how I was hoping to come across. I'm just trying to put forward my viewpoint, based upon longtime immersion in these artforms and growing up and living in London



North or south London?


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## sw16 (Aug 13, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> You're not talking about a totality, though, even though you're presenting it as such, you're talking about a sub-genre of a field of culture whose appeal doesn't even extend to the whole of its' target audience, and your examples aren't random, they're what you've deliberately chosen to illustrate your argument. That's like me attempting to prove that all Heavy Metal is satanic by posting up vids of Danzig, Deicide and Christian Death.



I've genuinely tried to choose examples that I think are most influential, rather than those that suit my argument. For examples those videos are probably three of the biggest and most talked about UK rap artists at the moment. Two of them have fairly recently gotten major label record deals, to the best of my knowledge, so they have A LOT of listeners.



ViolentPanda said:


> Mind you, I think you're also missing out on a big kick that people get from relentlessly harsh/defeatist/miserable lyrics - The "thank fuck *my* life isn't quite that shit" factor.



I take a much more pessimistic view, that they hear it and think "Our lives really are that shit" / "My life could be great/better if I did those things he's talking about and had those things he's bragging about"



ViolentPanda said:


> North or south London?



South. Lived in SE & SW all my life.


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## cantsin (Aug 13, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> Not just the Greeks. The Americans too.
> http://bailoutpeople.org/



nice


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## DotCommunist (Aug 13, 2011)

sw16 said:


> its worst excesses brought to the fore.
> 
> 
> > I have heard tracks that are literally just two minutes or so of aimless death threats and posturing.
> ...



I will refer the right honourable gentleman to 'hit em up' by the dear departed 2pac, perhaps the most violent set of angry threats ever set to music. And I still love it. In fact, I'm going to listen to it right now


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## sunnysidedown (Aug 13, 2011)

story said:


>



Btw, can't believe you managed to quote me before I changed my a to an e...


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 13, 2011)

sw16 said:


> I've genuinely tried to choose examples that I think are most influential, rather than those that suit my argument. For examples those videos are probably three of the biggest and most talked about UK rap artists at the moment. Two of them have fairly recently gotten major label record deals, to the best of my knowledge, so they have A LOT of listeners.



But that's my point. If you're choosing only from a sub-genre that makes your point for you, *whatever* you choose will suit your argument!



> I take a much more pessimistic view, that they hear it and think "Our lives really are that shit" / "My life could be great/better if I did those things he's talking about and had those things he's bragging about"



I'm sure that, for a percentage of the listener-ship, that'll be true, but the totality?



> South. Lived in SE & SW all my life.



Ah, you're one of us, a member of the righteous horde.


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## sw16 (Aug 13, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> I will refer the right honourable gentleman to 'Fake money' by the dear departed 2pac, perhaps the most violent set of angry threats ever set to music. And I still love it. In fact, I'm going to listen to it right now



Transgressive pleasures, right? Potent stuff. I'm still not immune myself, even though I'm understand it better these days 

That one's still faintly quaint, by modern standard, by the way. Compared to the utter marauding belligerance of:



Enough to make Starkey splutter himself to death, I think.



ViolentPanda said:


> But that's my point. If you're choosing only from a sub-genre that makes your point for you, *whatever* you choose will suit your argument!



This sub-genre is the most prevalent, though. It's what you'll hear, as I said, coming out of the mobile phones on the top deck of the bus.



ViolentPanda said:


> I'm sure that, for a percentage of the listener-ship, that'll be true, but the totality?


[/quote]

A seriously large amount, in my opinion. There's a dearth of alternative narratives and (credible, according to street culture) role models, and this sort of worldview has filled the hole.



ViolentPanda said:


> Ah, you're one of us, a member of the righteous horde.



South London forever! I love this place, want it and everyone in it to flourish.


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## story (Aug 13, 2011)

sw16 said:


> This sub-genre is the most prevalent, though. It's what you'll hear, as I said, coming out of the mobile phones on the top deck of the bus.



But also that horrible whiney R&B stuff too. That seems pretty ubiquitous on some bus routes / times of day.


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## littlebabyjesus (Aug 13, 2011)

story said:


> But also that horrible whiney R&B stuff too. That seems pretty ubiquitous on some bus routes / times of day.


Yep. I hear that a lot more than gangsta rap. And I find it far more offensive to the ear.


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## Luther Blissett (Aug 13, 2011)

sw16 said:


> Quaint.What's the message now?



This is The Message NOW


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## Guineveretoo (Aug 13, 2011)

OMG - I have just seen the interview from last night's Newsnight, and now see what everyone is talking about. It's outrageous! Much worse than I was expecting. What on earth are they doing, interviewing him?  He is a right wing historian - how are his views relevant or significant?


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## Luther Blissett (Aug 13, 2011)

Starkey's view echoes what BNPfuckwitleadernickgriffinmep was saying during the riots. Starkey got it all in there - Powell, black ganstas, white trash (which griffin called 'wigger').


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Aug 13, 2011)

Well, I don't think anyone takes him seriously as a historian.

He's employed as an offensive twat who generates controversies for the media. Kind of like a posh version of that sweary chef bloke or Bernard Manning without the wit.

The question to ask is why did the BBC want to generate a racism controversy rather than have an informed debate ...


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## littlebabyjesus (Aug 13, 2011)

He spends most of the interview trying to backtrack on his opening statement, which must have been the only bit that was preplanned. To say that Powell was right was idiotic, and even Starkey himself then admitted that Powell had in fact been wrong. Even bringing up Enoch Powell was idiotic.

He's a joke on every level - started banging on about rap and then couldn't produce any examples when challenged. He's not only talking about something he doesn't understand. He's talking about something he is barely acquainted with at all.


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## sw16 (Aug 13, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> He spends most of the interview trying to backtrack on his opening statement, which must have been the only bit that was preplanned. To say that Powell was right was idiotic, and even Starkey himself then admitted that Powell had in fact been wrong. Even bringing up Enoch Powell was idiotic.
> 
> He's a joke on every level - started banging on about rap and then couldn't produce any examples when challenged. He's not only talking about something he doesn't understand. He's talking about something he is barely acquainted with at all.



It's likely most of his experiences are probably from Jamie's Dream School, the only time I imagine his prim middle class world had collided with a different area of society for a while. It all seemed very new to him at that point, judging from his inability to deal with the kids he was tasked with schooling.

It's incredibly sad when mainstream public figures start bringing up rivers of blood in 2011. As long as they're not mainstream _political_ figures, I think all's not completely lost though.

It's important that we don't let his uninformed statements blind us from very real ills of youth culture though, and let him drop big stupid uninformed bombs that blow real discussion out of the water. Same with that prick Griffin.

I'm a rap/hiphop fan, and I've been so for a long time, but even I can see that there are some things that are wrong with much of what the kids are listening to and influenced by right now.


----------



## smokedout (Aug 13, 2011)

sw16 said:


> But quality of life has, for the most part, improved. We don't have any favelas, we don't have any ghettos, vast areas of very real and grinding poverty, like the Americans do.



yes we do, go up north, in london its much more fractured, very poor areas can exist next door to very rich ones, but that doesnt diminish the experience of poverty for those that live in them, in may well even highlight it

i'm not sure quality of life has improved - youth unemployment is rising towards 80's levels (and masked by the number of kids on shite new deal/workfare schemes. bottom end wages and benefits in real terms have got far worse and back then 16/17 year olds were entitled to benefits. education to degree level was free and came with a maintenance grant. most importantly the possibility of even a council flat is a remote dream for many young people, private rents have soared and the idea of ever buying a property is inconceivable for young working class people. social institutions, whether working mens clubs, youth clubs or working class boozers are disappearing, trade unionism as an organising force for the working class is vastly diminished and the handful of old labour politicians who might have fought for working class kids are dead like bernie grant or have sold out like livingstone. the footie is too expensive, clubs and gigs are heading that way and festivals are just for the middle classes, whilst kids who hang round in the streets get harrassed just as much if not more than they ever did by the police. unemployed workers projects and community training projects have been subsumed by the like of cunts like a4e, who instead of viewing the disaffected young as people to be supported and nurtured view them simply as a way to make a buck. food and fuel prices are soaring and people are bombarded everywhere they look with images of things that they haven't got and can't afford. its shite out there and no amount of skytv is going to change that.


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## ska invita (Aug 13, 2011)

> (owen - chavs book) Jones has written a blog for the New Statesman today about his encounter with Starkey, in which he compares the historian to "Enoch Powell meets Alan Partridge".



pretty good description - harvey is a joke (not to play down the potential danger of what he says)


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## littlebabyjesus (Aug 13, 2011)

_Starkey_ is a joke.

Are we going to have to give you lines again? Hmm?


----------



## dylans (Aug 13, 2011)

sw16 said:


> It's likely most of his experiences are probably from Jamie's Dream School, the only time I imagine his prim middle class world had collided with a different area of society for a while. It all seemed very new to him at that point, judging from his inability to deal with the kids he was tasked with schooling.
> 
> It's incredibly sad when mainstream public figures start bringing up rivers of blood in 2011. As long as they're not mainstream _political_ figures, I think all's not completely lost though.
> 
> ...


I've only just tuned into the thread so apols if this as been said before but isn't this concern for "youth culture" a bit over the top? I mean, isn't it really just another twist on the generational critique of youth sub cultures that has always taken place and therefore a bit of a moral panic? I mean hasn't this or something like this been said about punk (nihilistic, destructive) mods (gang related, drug influenced), hippies (the list of evils is just to long to note) rockers and teddy boys(sexually promiscuous, rebellious) Jazz (reefer addicts) etc throughout the decades. Now personally I detest gangsta rap and the entire fake american, fake gangster, attitude, pose associated with it but I appreciate that my dislike is purely aesthetic and artistic (and generational) rather than political or sociological. I am therefore wary of this kind of critique and despite different aesthetics, I don't see anything in it that is particularly unique to this particular lifestyle or subculture.

What also worries me about this kind of culture critique or subculture critique is that there is a danger of ignoring something much more significant, and that is the more widespread individualistic, consumerist ethos that has replaced much of the working class culture of the past but i would point to much more material causes of this namely 30 years of neo liberalism, the destruction of organised labour and industrial communities that started with Thatcher. This, the vaccuum of culture that is being filled with various lifestyles and locally produced sub cultures based on consumerism, is much more concerning rather than the particular aesthetic form that those youth sub cultures take and I worry that by focusing on the particular aesthetics of youth sub cultures we are in danger of missing the wood for the trees.


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Aug 13, 2011)

Yeah, *Harvey* is on pretty good form ...



> If we are lucky, we will have commissions and reports to say all over again what was said of Brixton and Toxteth in the Thatcher years. I say ‘lucky’ because the feral instincts of the current Prime Minister seem more attuned to turn on the water cannons, to call in the tear gas brigade and use the rubber bullets while pontificating unctuously about the loss of moral compass, the decline of civility and the sad deterioration of family values and discipline among errant youths.
> 
> But the problem is that we live in a society where capitalism itself has become rampantly feral. Feral politicians cheat on their expenses, feral bankers plunder the public purse for all its worth, CEOs, hedge fund operators and private equity geniuses loot the world of wealth, telephone and credit card companies load mysterious charges on everyone’s bills, shopkeepers price gouge, and, at the drop of a hat swindlers and scam artists get to practice three-card monte right up into the highest echelons of the corporate and political world.
> 
> A political economy of mass dispossession, of predatory practices to the point of daylight robbery, particularly of the poor and the vulnerable, the unsophisticated and the legally unprotected, has become the order of the day. Does anyone believe it is possible to find an honest capitalist, an honest banker, an honest politician, an honest shopkeeper or an honest police commisioner any more? Yes, they do exist. But only as a minority that everyone else regards as stupid. Get smart. Get Easy Profits. Defraud and steal! The odds of getting caught are low. And in any case there are plenty of ways to shield personal wealth from the costs of corporate malfeasance.



http://davidharvey.org/2011/08/feral-capitalism-hits-the-streets/

Unless you mean the giant rabbit one ...


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 13, 2011)

smokedout said:


> yes we do, go up north, in london its much more fractured, very poor areas can exist next door to very rich ones, but that doesnt diminish the experience of poverty for those that live in them, in may well even highlight it
> 
> i'm not sure quality of life has improved - youth unemployment is rising towards 80's levels (and masked by the number of kids on shite new deal/workfare schemes. bottom end wages and benefits in real terms have got far worse and back then 16/17 year olds were entitled to benefits. education to degree level was free and came with a maintenance grant. most importantly the possibility of even a council flat is a remote dream for many young people, private rents have soared and the idea of ever buying a property is inconceivable for young working class people. social institutions, whether working mens clubs, youth clubs or working class boozers are disappearing, trade unionism as an organising force for the working class is vastly diminished and the handful of old labour politicians who might have fought for working class kids are dead like bernie grant or have sold out like livingstone. the footie is too expensive, clubs and gigs are heading that way and festivals are just for the middle classes, whilst kids who hang round in the streets get harrassed just as much if not more than they ever did by the police. unemployed workers projects and community training projects have been subsumed by the like of cunts like a4e, who instead of viewing the disaffected young as people to be supported and nurtured view them simply as a way to make a buck. food and fuel prices are soaring and people are bombarded everywhere they look with images of things that they haven't got and can't afford. its shite out there and no amount of skytv is going to change that.



well said


----------



## Luther Blissett (Aug 13, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> He spends most of the interview trying to backtrack on his opening statement, which must have been the only bit that was preplanned. To say that Powell was right was idiotic, and even Starkey himself then admitted that Powell had in fact been wrong. Even bringing up Enoch Powell was idiotic.
> 
> He's a joke on every level - started banging on about rap and then couldn't produce any examples when challenged. He's not only talking about something he doesn't understand. He's talking about something he is barely acquainted with at all.



And now @NICKGRIFFlNMEP has tweeted


> "Wondering whether to make David Starkey an honoury Gold Member for his Newsnight appearance".​


Coffin. Nail.


----------



## sw16 (Aug 13, 2011)

dylans said:


> This, the vaccuum of culture that is being filled with various lifestyles and locally produced sub cultures based on consumerism, is much more concerning rather than the particular aesthetic form that those youth sub cultures take and I worry that by focusing on the particular aesthetics of youth sub cultures we are in danger of missing the wood for the trees.



You (and others on here) could well be right, to be honest. I've been wrestling with this a lot lately, and am wondering if I am actually just being a curmudgeonly old fart about it all.

It's how materialistic, how totally unidealistic, how totally without any kind of discernable _goodness_ this subculture can be, that is what I think I find the hardest to take. It's against the establishment but (unlike more "conscious" hip hop that is not at all popular on the streets) not really FOR the advancement of anyone except the one person who's telling us about how rich he wants to be, or him and his gang. Society is there to be robbed, and your peers are either fellow robbers, rivals or victims.

Someone said to me recently that everyone thinks they're being honourable, everyone thinks they're doing the right thing according to their own viewpoint, but it's incredibly hard to see how that can apply to one that glorifies in murder, oppressing your own community, and the accumulation of personal wealth above all else.



Luther Blissett said:


> "Wondering whether to make David Starkey an honoury Gold Member for his Newsnight appearance".



The BNP has tiers of membership!?

I can't read "Gold Membership" without putting it in some kind of online videogame context. "BIGOTRY ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED!"


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 13, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> You reckon? you reckon he said these things to get a reaction from people like U75 posters?
> 
> I think you're way off the mark. What he said, and the fact that he wasn't properly pulled up for it, shows the racists that it's ok to be racist out loud now. The riots have made it ok. 'Look, I'm doing it on tv, and it's ok.'



No, I think he did it to get a wider reaction, one which is reflected on here.

Maybe you move in more refined circles than others, but in my experience, racists don't need permission from the likes of Starkey to be 'racist out loud.'


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 13, 2011)

DP


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 13, 2011)

DP


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 13, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Maybe you move in more refined circles than others, but in my experience, racists don't need permission from the likes of Starkey to be 'racist out loud.'


Certainly now that I have a 'middle class' job, I don't hear any overt racism at work, whereas I heard it in the past when I did different jobs. But don't you think that racists have had to keep quiet in recent times? Like John Barnes said in reaction to someone saying how much less racist football crowds were: 'the racists are still there, they just keep their mouths shut now'.

Maybe I'm wrong. It might just be a function of doing a different kind of work now from the work I did in my 20s. But it is my impression that, in all walks of life, explicitly racist talk is far less prevalent than it was.


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Aug 13, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> No, I think he did it to get a wider reaction, one which is reflected on here.<snip>'



The interesting question is why an allegedly serious news programme like Newsnight was involved in "controversy based marketing", if that's what they thought that they were doing by inviting a "professional twat" like Starkey onto the programme.

I mean yeah, Big Brother, sure ... get whatserface and her mum to be racist to that indian filmstar to push your ratings back up .. why the fuck not, our society is already morally bankrupt, why not do shit like that to make money?

But Newsnight ... ?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 13, 2011)

Bernie Gunther said:


> The interesting question is why an allegedly serious news programme like Newsnight was involved in "controversy based marketing", if that's what they thought that they were doing by inviting a "professional twat" like Starkey onto the programme.


It doesn't surprise me. The BBC is a morally bankrupt organisation. They have a spurious notion of 'balance', and to them that means that if you have a youth worker on a discussion panel, you also have to have Starkey, Mad Mel or some other frothing right-winger.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 13, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Certainly now that I have a 'middle class' job, I don't hear any overt racism at work, whereas I heard it in the past when I did different jobs. But don't you think that racists have had to keep quiet in recent times? Like John Barnes said in reaction to someone saying how much less racist football crowds were: 'the racists are still there, they just keep their mouths shut now'.
> 
> Maybe I'm wrong. It might just be a function of doing a different kind of work now from the work I did in my 20s. But it is my impression that, in all walks of life, explicitly racist talk is far less prevalent than it was.


 
Maybe it is your job (and Barnes's). It's the middle class racists who generally keep quiet about it except with their own kind.

You might be right about explicit racist talk. As with the organised racist right, it hasn't gone away, however; it's merely couched in different terms. That's why Starkey seems so shocking with his naked (probably insincere) racism.


----------



## weltweit (Aug 13, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> ... That's why Starkey seems so shocking with his naked (probably insincere) racism.



Starkey was not precise with his words, I think he meant to focus on black gang culture. But his stuff about David Lamy sounding white was pure idiot stuff, as if there is a sound that white people make. Middle class people tend to sound a certain way, but they do that whatever their skin colour.

Anyhow he is a self publicist and in that he has generated plenty of coverage.


----------



## roctrevezel (Aug 13, 2011)

weltweit said:


> Starkey was not precise with his words,



Exactly, he made it sound as if there were only one afro-carribean culture. Darcus Howe playing dominoes with his peers in his local is somewhat different to "gangsta", reggae, or rastafarianism


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## Poo Flakes (Aug 13, 2011)

> Starkey was not precise with his words, I think he meant to focus on black gang culture. But his stuff about David Lamy sounding white was pure idiot stuff, as if there is a sound that white people make. Middle class people tend to sound a certain way, but they do that whatever their skin colour.



Why give the twat benefit of the doubt?  This was the natural end point of a rambling little-englander who has been asked to comment on one topic too many, hope he burns.


----------



## Brainaddict (Aug 13, 2011)

roctrevezel said:


> The trouble with Starkey is whatever tiny bit of truth may be buried somewhere in his comments is hidden very deeply under many layers of snobbery, prejudice, and academic elitism.


The trouble with David Starkey is that he's a racist, a bigot, an ignorant arsehole of a man. At this point I'm so pissed off with what is being mainstreamed into public debate that I'm not really willing to separate out any 'buried truths' within what he says. I just think he should be denounced as a racist in every possible way in every possible medium and if possible his career should be destroyed.

A brief summary of the political and media reaction to rioting and looting


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## Luther Blissett (Aug 13, 2011)

Re. Bernie's feral capitalism post above:

A mother of two under 5-year olds (aged 1 and 5) got sent down for 5 months for handling stolen goods (one pair of designer shorts, from a pile brought round which she chose from). She will be separated from her children, and incarcerated at great emotional cost to her children, and financial cost to the taxpayer.

Gove, who either stole £7k or £13k, depending on which house he put down on his expense claim form, was given the chance to pay the money back and continue his political career.


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## weltweit (Aug 13, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> Re. Bernie's feral capitalism post above:
> 
> A mother of two under 5-year olds (aged 1 and 5) got sent down for 5 months for handling stolen goods (one pair of designer shorts, from a pile brought round which she chose from). She will be separated from her children, and incarcerated at great emotional cost to her children, and financial cost to the taxpayer.
> 
> Gove, who either stole £7k or £13k, depending on which house he put down on his expense claim form, was given the chance to pay the money back and continue his political career.



But that is not the same, MPs are better than the rest of us!


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Aug 13, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> Re. Bernie's feral capitalism post above:
> 
> A mother of two under 5-year olds (aged 1 and 5) got sent down for 5 months for handling stolen goods (one pair of designer shorts, from a pile brought round which she chose from). She will be separated from her children, and incarcerated at great emotional cost to her children, and financial cost to the taxpayer.
> 
> Gove, who either stole £7k or £13k, depending on which house he put down on his expense claim form, was given the chance to pay the money back and continue his political career.



Yep, sort of makes the point doesn't it?

Especially when they send the odious streak of shite to pontificate on TV about morality and shout down any discussion of causes ...


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## frogwoman (Aug 13, 2011)

lol, on our stall today some guy came up to us and started to go on about how the riots were all the fault of the students who had protested in November, because they were all rich, and had smashed up the whole of London and "set a bad example to the blacks" - "the blacks" saw the students protesting and thought "why can't we do that?"


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## Treacle Toes (Aug 13, 2011)

> *David Starkey is a successful Cambridge academic, but when you close your eyes, he sounds just like a white supremacist.*


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## free spirit (Aug 13, 2011)

has anyone mentioned starkey's an utter cunt yet?


----------



## elbows (Aug 13, 2011)

I can't decide whether this is an effective rebuttal of Starkey raving bonkers, but I'll take the risk and post it anyway, since a decent Starkey remix that chops some sense into that bollock is yet to emerge.


----------



## ItWillNeverWork (Aug 13, 2011)

elbows said:


> I can't decide whether this is an effective rebuttal of Starkey raving bonkers, but I'll take the risk and post it anyway, since a decent Starkey remix that chops some sense into that bollock is yet to emerge.


----------



## ItWillNeverWork (Aug 13, 2011)

BTW, more people need to give that video a thumbs up. The dislikes are outnumbering the likes.


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## roctrevezel (Aug 13, 2011)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> BTW, more people need to give that video a thumbs up. The dislikes are outnumbering the likes.



For some strange reason that video make me wish I had one of these:-


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## Poo Flakes (Aug 14, 2011)

> Starkey remix that chops some sense into that bollock is yet to emerge.



I made this crappy video in thirty minutes


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## agricola (Aug 14, 2011)

roctrevezel said:


> For some strange reason that video make me wish I had one of these:-



((( the arse of whoever had to ride that around )))


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## taffboy gwyrdd (Aug 14, 2011)

There used to be a lot more ill qualified bigotry about gay people that I'm sure would infuriate Starkey.

He's a nasty racist shit and he really should remember the amount of struggle people have gone through to achieve the rights and respect the LGBT community deserve instead of dredging up reactionary myths about other victims of prejudice.

As it happens, I've sometimes enjoyed his history shows, but he could do with reading about a phenomena called "colonialisation".

Nick Griffins comments say it all.

I hope we never hear or see Starkey on the BBC again, at least not without a full apology and explanation. The should not have had him on Radio 5 afterwards, but the BBC has a track record of rewarding racists.


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## Apathy (Aug 14, 2011)

Poo Flakes said:


> I made this crappy video in thirty minutes




not 29 minutes?


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## taffboy gwyrdd (Aug 14, 2011)

One more thing: Insofar as "black" culture, in the form of gansta rap or whatever, "influences" are young - Dr Starkey might want to investigate the skin colour of the people who profit out of the individualistic, consumer capitalist messages that it pushes. I have a strong suspicion they are of the familiar pinkish hue.


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## weltweit (Aug 14, 2011)

free spirit said:


> has anyone mentioned starkey's an utter cunt yet?



I was going to try to defend Starkey, because I like him when he is on Question Time, but in this interview he does not try to remain in the boundaries of normal decency, anyone mentioning the rivers of blood speech is likely to fall foul of the same things that Enoch Powell fell foul of, I suppose we at least were spared the indignities of Starkey using the word "piccaninnies" today. But David Lammy is not white, he does not sound white, he does sound middle class however and that is a group that can include all sorts of skin colours.

Basically Starkey is a knob!


----------



## weltweit (Aug 14, 2011)

weltweit said:


> Basically Starkey is a knob!



He could have said what he wanted to say without offending anyone.

It is very hard to talk about race in todays Britain and not be branded a racist.

And I think it is not clear that these riots had a race element at all.
But his style is to be controversial and of course it has gained him considerable exposure.

But has it gained him the exposure he wanted?


----------



## London_Calling (Aug 14, 2011)

I think  your're being a little generous terming it 'style'. Before anything else, Starkey is a theatrical slapper - he desperately wants to give a _performance_: a performance you'll remember, darlinks. Starkey is entirely about Starkey. Anything else is a distant second.


----------



## Apathy (Aug 14, 2011)

and he's funny looking.  The fuckin lemon


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 14, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> This is The Message NOW




Respect


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 14, 2011)

sunnysidedown said:


> Fuck this shit, almost exactly 20 years ago today there were riots in North Shields (north uk), kicked off by the death of 2 joyriders, the local community came out and burnt down and looted every shop on the estate.
> And I'll tell you something else, no one on these boards would of understood a word those fuckers said, hard core Geordies, and as white as your sheets.
> 
> Fuck all the southern liberal racist cunts.



Actually, I spent 4 years in Newcastle and I know North Shields very well (The Chainlocker is a top pub, if it's still there) and I understand Geordie perfectly well.

Not sure what else you're trying to say, dude.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 14, 2011)

Here's that arsehole Delingpole with his contribution.



> The part of the programme which seems to have most got the left’s goat is the one where David Starkey says that “the whites have become black.” But again, the cultural point he is making is indisputable. Listen to how many white kids (and Asian kids) choose to speak in black street patois; note the extent to which hip hop and grime garage and their offshoots have penetrated the white mainstream; check out how many white kids like to roll like pimps or perps with their Calvins pulled up to their midriffs and their jean waistbands sagging below their buttocks.
> http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/j...david-starkey-is-racist-then-so-is-everybody/



His fellow Torygraph blogger takes him to task



> Daniel Knowles
> 2 minutes ago
> I'm not sure James. For your argument to be true, that sort of inner-city, youth, Afro-Caribbean/Afro-American inspired culture has to be the only "black" culture going.
> 
> That's pretty offensive - what about the British-inspired church-going Afro-Caribbean culture, or the bloody-hard working African immigrants who wouldn't dream of joining in a spot of looting? To tar all "black culture" with the bits you (and Starkey) do is as wrong as making Eminem and chavs the only representatives of white culture. Ie: It's racist.



War breaks out at the Torygraph!


----------



## sunnysidedown (Aug 14, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> Actually, I spent 4 years in Newcastle and I know North Shields very well (The Chainlocker is a top pub, if it's still there) and I understand Geordie perfectly well.
> 
> Not sure what else you're trying to say, dude.



It was piss head ramblings last night I'm afraid...

I was annoyed by both the comments on Newsnight, and some of the comments on here.

Back in the early 90s the big thing in the NE was nicking cars, the Meadowell was a notorious place where cars were taken, driven around and shown off, it was the death of 2 lads, locally seen as being caused by the police, that resulted in riots that bare similarities with those recently in Tottenham.

I made a comment about accent because a lot of the current discussion seems to refer to text speak/gangsta slang, and the point I was making was that a kind of similar language existed amongst the youth back then.

Before the term chav appeared everywhere, up north there was the term charver that denoted someone from the west end of Newcastle, and I often heard the term charver-speak used when referring to a particular Geordie accent.

Another point of interest, with reference to gansta rap/grime etc, the music of choice for most car thieves (they would play tapes in the stolen car) appeared to be rave/hardcore, the frantic MC dialog spurring on the pilled-up crowd became the soundtrack for pilled up car thieves. I actually heard someone once use the term 'car thief techno' to describe a track.

Not sure where I am going with all this though


----------



## story (Aug 14, 2011)

Well it's interesting, at any rate 

We were discussing accents and dialects etc. because one of Starkey's main contentions was that if Black people want to get on and be accepted, they have to speak like middle class White people. He'd probably say something similar about Geordies.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 14, 2011)

sunnysidedown said:


> It was piss head ramblings last night I'm afraid...
> 
> I was annoyed by both the comments on Newsnight, and some of the comments on here.
> 
> ...



Sure. I think the catalyst for many riots in the last 40+ years has been the police and the way they respond to the local population.

The same happened with the 1965 Watts riots in Los Angeles, the 1981 Toxteth and St Paul's riots and the riots in Brixton and Broadwater Farm in 1985.

Music, like films and telly, doesn't cause riots. That's an imagined cause and only lazy politicians and their supporters use that as a reason. Didn't they rename Smith's Park Metro Station "Meadow Well" in an attempt to provide the community with some sort of identity?


----------



## weltweit (Aug 14, 2011)

story said:


> Well it's interesting, at any rate
> 
> We were discussing accents and dialects etc. because one of Starkey's main contentions was that if Black people want to get on and be accepted, they have to speak like middle class White people. He'd probably say something similar about Geordies.



In Germany people are proud of their regional accents.

I think in Britain too.

But you do tend to find people here with middle class accents more in higher paying jobs.

But there has been change, no more is the BBC staffed with RP equipped people.


----------



## sunnysidedown (Aug 14, 2011)

story said:


> Well it's interesting, at any rate
> 
> We were discussing accents and dialects etc. because one of Starkey's main contentions was that if Black people want to get on and be accepted, they have to speak like middle class White people. He'd probably say something similar about Geordies.



Yeah that's the point I was trying to make  Starkey is trying to racialise this, using cultural signifiers of his perception of a black culture, when 20 years ago we had a very similar culture to the one now being analized, that was essentially 100% white.


----------



## sunnysidedown (Aug 14, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> Didn't they rename Smith's Park Metro Station "Meadow Well" in an attempt to provide the community with some sort of identity?



The area used to be known as the Ridges, up until the early 70s I think -  they changed the name to the Meadow Well in an attempt to rid the place if it's nortoriety. As far as I know it's still called the Meadow Well.


----------



## weltweit (Aug 14, 2011)

sunnysidedown said:


> Yeah that's the point I was trying to make  Starkey is trying to racialise this, using cultural signifiers of his perception of a black culture, when 20 years ago we had a very similar culture to the one now being analized, that was essentially 100% white.



But are you saying that now there is no racial element to it?


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 14, 2011)

sunnysidedown said:


> The area used to be known as the Ridges, up until the early 70s I think - they changed the name to the Meadow Well in an attempt to rid the place if it's nortoriety. As far as I know it's still called the Meadow Well.



I just remember that station as Smith's Park back in the 80's. I used to pass through it on my way to the very genteel Tynemouth. It's one of those estates, like so many others (Hattersley in Greater Manchester springs to mind) in this country that are our equivalent of the French banlieues: they're out in the middle of nowhere and far from the centre of things.


----------



## sunnysidedown (Aug 14, 2011)

weltweit said:


> But are you saying that now there is no racial element to it?



I'm saying the whites have not turned black, which is what Starkey is saying.

Institutionalised racism from the police/media is a different kettle of fish though.


----------



## weltweit (Aug 14, 2011)

sunnysidedown said:


> I'm saying the whites have not turned black, which is what Starkey is saying.



I don't know if the whites have turned black or not (obviously not all of them have) but what I wonder is what on earth that has to do with the riots and looting?


----------



## sunnysidedown (Aug 14, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> I just remember that station as Smith's Park back in the 80's. I used to pass through it on my way to the very genteel Tynemouth. It's one of those estates, like so many others (Hattersley in Greater Manchester springs to mind) in this country that are our equivalent of the French banlieues: they're out in the middle of nowhere and far from the centre of things.



The local metro station was called smiths park when the metro first opened, I forgot about that, they renamed the station to the meadow well after the meadow well estate got tarted up, post-riots. 

Did you ever drink in the Turks Head in Tynemouth?


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 14, 2011)

sunnysidedown said:


> The local metro station was called smiths park when the metro first opened, I forgot about that, they renamed the station to the meadow well after the meadow well estate got tarted up, post-riots.
> 
> Did you ever drink in the Turks Head in Tynemouth?



Yes, I remember the Turks Head well.


----------



## Poo Flakes (Aug 14, 2011)

> I don't know if the whites have turned black or not (obviously not all of them have) but what I wonder is what on earth that has to do with the riots and looting?



It is just pathological right-wing crap.  They do not listen to rap music, so it must be that.

It is pretty obvious why he said it, and why right-wing newspapers are backing him.  This crap will surface even more in the recession. The one that makes me cringe: "the _Eastern Europeans/Africans/Russians/Chinese_ are better qualified and work harder than our unemployed youth".  A myth largely perpetuated by far right (by our political spectrum) Eastern Europeans, and by individuals who could not have possibly investigated it objectively (keep in mind immigrants are generally the lowest paid, so by definition would be amongst the least productive).


----------



## weltweit (Aug 14, 2011)

Poo Flakes said:


> It is just pathological right-wing crap. They do not listen to rap music, so it must be that.
> 
> It is pretty obvious why he said it, and why right-wing newspapers are backing him.



Oh I am far less certain why he said it, his MO seems to be to promote the brand Starkey above all else, I doubt he would be worried by a little controversy as he thrives on it but I don't think he would want to be seriously branded a racist.



Poo Flakes said:


> This crap will surface even more in the recession. The one that makes me cringe: "the _Eastern Europeans/Africans/Russians/Chinese_ are better qualified and work harder than our unemployed youth". A myth largely perpetuated by far right (by our political spectrum) Eastern Europeans, and by individuals who could not have possibly investigated it objectively (keep in mind immigrants are generally the lowest paid, so by definition would be amongst the least productive).



Well. That is a whole different can of worms.
It is difficult to comment without any concrete facts.
I don't think references to people I know  will be satisfactory..


----------



## Luther Blissett (Aug 14, 2011)




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## Poo Flakes (Aug 14, 2011)

weltweit said:


> .
> I don't think references to people I know  will be satisfactory..



They are not a different can of worms.  Starkey's shite and this theory are reactionary post-hoc rationalisations which offer little in the way of predictability.  Is Starkey suggesting that an increase in rap music leads to an increase in rioting? Alternatively, is the 'Immigrants are productive' argument suggesting hiring a person of a particular ethnic group will increase productivity?


----------



## weltweit (Aug 14, 2011)

Poo Flakes said:


> Is Starkey suggesting that an increase in rap music leads to an increase in rioting?



No I don't think he was suggesting that, indeed he mentioned that they used rap in Jamie Olivers Dream School and the lady who was on with Starkey also said rap could be useful in education.

I think he wanted to allude to disfunctional gang members but he was not precise in his language.



Poo Flakes said:


> Alternatively, is the 'Immigrants are productive' argument suggesting hiring a person of a particular ethnic group will increase productivity?



But I think this immigrant argument is a thing you have introduced Poo Flakes, I don't think Starkey for all his ills mentioned it in the program.

There are quite a lot of recent immigrants working in Britain and for some this raises issues, indeed even Gordon Brown got caught in that British jobs for British workers issue.


----------



## Poo Flakes (Aug 14, 2011)

> I think he wanted to allude to disfunctional gang members but he was not precise in his language.



For what purpose though? That gangs are somehow destroying society, and how can we measure that? So, if we increase gang membership, society becomes 'more' destroyed? You are giving him benefit of the doubt, but even in your interpretation his point would have been totally fatuous.



> But I think this immigrant argument is a thing you have introduced Poo Flakes, I don't think Starkey for all his ills mentioned it in the program.



Starkey never mentioned it, but some Tories have (video scroll to 1.30).  It is all part of the same cuntish narrative. These rioters are just gang members, uneducated (which Starkey did claim), not interested in work, feral, criminal...


----------



## smmudge (Aug 14, 2011)

weltweit said:


> but I don't think he would want to be seriously branded a racist.



He shouldn't say racist things then.


----------



## story (Aug 14, 2011)

weltweit said:


> I don't know if the whites have turned black or not (obviously not all of them have) but what I wonder is what on earth that has to do with the riots and looting?



Of course White people have not "turned" Black. It's an absurd suggestion.

If some young White people choose to adopt the vernacular of a group of people to whom they are exposed, or with whom they hang out, or with whom they feel some affinity, or by whom they feel impressed, it does not then follow that they have become the people they are copying.

What about all those middle class White kids? The ones at university? Who all sat around watching Neighbours? Did they become Aussies because they spoke with that up thing at the end of every phrase?

Or my mixed race African friend who finds it expedient to sometimes adopt the patois of the Jamaicans with whom he lives and works: is he suddenly an actual Jamaican? Tim Westwood: is he Black? Sasha Baron Cohen: is he Black? Or maybe he's Turkistani?

Stupid to even entertain the notion.

Starkey was saying in part that it's the adoption of "Black culture" (whatever that means...) by White people that caused the riots; it's so dumb that I can't believe we're actually discussing it as a possibility. It shows him up as ignorant and racist. And an ignorant racist.


----------



## story (Aug 14, 2011)

weltweit said:


> Oh I am far less certain why he said it, his MO seems to be to promote the brand Starkey above all else, I doubt he would be worried by a little controversy as he thrives on it but *I don't think he would want to be seriously branded a racist.*
> .



He may get away with claiming not to be _*a*_ Racist, but he has outed himself as holding racist views.



weltweit said:


> No I don't think he was suggesting that, indeed he mentioned that they used rap in Jamie Olivers Dream School and the lady who was on with Starkey also said rap could be useful in education.
> 
> I think he wanted to allude to disfunctional gang members *but he was not precise in his language*.



He's a fucking historian, a broadcaster, a commentator. It's his _job_ to speak clearly and precisely. And he did speak very clearly and precisely, imo, repeatedly elucidating his points.


----------



## story (Aug 14, 2011)

Poo Flakes said:


>




And Batten can fuck off an' all.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 14, 2011)

Multi-kulti rage? Have the Russia Today crew been getting their info from scumfront?


----------



## Luther Blissett (Aug 14, 2011)

story said:


> And Batten can fuck off an' all.


He's another associate in the rightwing CounterJihad Europa network. From a speech he gave at their 2007 conference in Brussels: 


> "The prevailing and corrosive doctrines of political correctness and multiculturalism have infected every public body and institution"


He chooses to focus on only fundamentalism within Islam, and ignores completely the other relgious fundamentalisms, some of whom (on the Christian right) are attempting to ban or reduce right to choose, and there's no doubt many non-Islamic fundamentalist groups are already looking to step in with their 'mission' as public services and welfare state are dismantled. More alarmingly for those who don't subscribe to the western and Christian supremacist view that Batten advocates, he chillingly calls for forcing the assimilation of immigrants.


----------



## Luther Blissett (Aug 14, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> Multi-kulti rage? Have the Russia Today crew been getting their info from scumfront?


Nothing about Russia Today would surprise me.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 14, 2011)

What makes you say that lol?


----------



## ItWillNeverWork (Aug 14, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> Multi-kulti rage? Have the Russia Today crew been getting their info from scumfront?



Yeah, it's an odd thing isn't it this term 'multi-kulti'. I started a thread about it in the general forum as I've noticed it about a lot more recently. It pisses me off no end I can tell you.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 14, 2011)

I wouldn't expect a news channel, not even Putin's state news channel, to use it, to put it mildly


----------



## weltweit (Aug 14, 2011)

story said:


> ...
> Starkey was saying in part that it's the adoption of "Black culture" (whatever that means...) by White people that caused the riots; it's so dumb that I can't believe we're actually discussing it as a possibility. It shows him up as ignorant and racist. And an ignorant racist.



Yes, he did say that which is obviously wrong.

What I think he meant to say was black gang culture. But as I mentioned I don't think he was speaking clearly - or for that matter thinking clearly.


----------



## weltweit (Aug 14, 2011)

story said:


> ...
> He's a fucking historian, a broadcaster, a commentator. It's his _job_ to speak clearly and precisely. And he did speak very clearly and precisely, imo, repeatedly elucidating his points.



Well, I was quite confused by what he said.

How can David Lammy sound white? is there a white sound now?


----------



## weltweit (Aug 14, 2011)

Poo Flakes said:


> ...
> Starkey never mentioned it, but some Tories have (video scroll to 1.30). It is all part of the same cuntish narrative. These rioters are just gang members, uneducated (which Starkey did claim), not interested in work, feral, criminal...



Well it would be interesting to know who the rioters actually are / were. As things stand I have no idea really who was rioting and looting and why. I believe it perhaps started because of the police killing in Totennham, but what about all the rest. Who are they and why did they do it?


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Aug 14, 2011)

weltweit said:


> Yes, he did say that which is obviously wrong.
> 
> What I think he meant to say was black gang culture. But as I mentioned I don't think he was speaking clearly - or for that matter thinking clearly.


I think you are giving him too much benefit of the doubt. I cannot imagine Starkey saying anything he did not mean. His profession means he has to speak clearly, he has to express his opinions, ideas, interpretation etc..in a clear and concise way.

I think he knew _exactly_ what he was saying.


----------



## weltweit (Aug 14, 2011)

QueenOfGoths said:


> I think you are giving him too much benefit of the doubt.



I am probably doing that. My trouble is that I like him (liked perhaps) I always enjoyed seeing him on Question Time giving ALL the politicians a hard time. But I cannot square that with what he said in this recording, a lot of which is simply offensive which is exactly the reception Enoch Powell received on giving his rivers of blood speech, some small parts of which I agree with (small parts!).



QueenOfGoths said:


> I cannot imagine Starkey saying anything he did not mean. His profession means he has to speak clearly, he has to express his opinions, ideas, interpretation etc..in a clear and concise way. I think he knew _exactly_ what he was saying.



hmm


----------



## story (Aug 14, 2011)

weltweit said:


> Yes, he did say that which is obviously wrong.
> 
> What I think he meant to say was black gang culture. But as I mentioned I don't think he was speaking clearly - or for that matter thinking clearly.



weltweit, for heavensake. He has not corrected, retracted, qualified or disclaimed anything that he said on Newsnight. On the contrary, he was later interviewed on Radio5Live and said exactly the same thing.



weltweit said:


> Well, I was quite confused by what he said.
> 
> How can David Lammy sound white? is there a white sound now?



Yes. In the same way as there was / is a BBC announcer "sound". Witness the ridiculous hoohah about Neil Nunes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbpointsofview/html/NF1951568?thread=3831972

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/mar/26/radio.bbc

If you're confused, weltweit, maybe you should go back and have another look at the clip, and watch it without remembering how fond you are of Starkey's tendency to rile up his opponents. I never had you down as someone who toes the party line of anyone that you rather like, regardless of their position or opinions.

Bullies and tyrants recruit their troops from amongst those ready or able to ignore the message because they like the way in which it is delivered.


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## Brainaddict (Aug 14, 2011)

I think we should all agree to never mention his name again without referring to him as The Well-Known Racist, David Starkey


----------



## story (Aug 14, 2011)

weltweit said:


> I am probably doing that. My trouble is that I like him (liked perhaps) I always enjoyed seeing him on Question Time giving ALL the politicians a hard time. But I cannot square that with what he said in this recording, a lot of which is simply offensive which is exactly the reception Enoch Powell received on giving *his rivers of blood speech, some small parts of which I agree with (small parts!)*.


 
On the other hand, perhaps you are finding space to understand Starkey's position because yours is similar...?

What do *you* think is behind the riots, weltweit? You said earlier that you had no idea (I suggest you have a read of the thread that is asking the same question: lots of interesting discussion there) but you don't strike me as a person who is unable to form an opinion. It's been a week now: what are _your_ thoughts on the matter?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 14, 2011)

weltweit said:


> What I think he meant to say was black gang culture..


No. That is what he meant, but it isn't what he meant to say. There's a difference, and it is in that difference that Starkey's racist assumptions are to be found. He simply didn't recognise that 'gang culture' isn't synonymous with something more general that he thinks of as 'black culture'.

He's a racist, ww. He's a racist in a way that I'm sure you are not. You're gonna have to ditch him, I think.


----------



## killer b (Aug 14, 2011)

Brainaddict said:


> I think we should all agree to never mention his name again without referring to him as The Well-Known Racist, David Starkey


'Celebrity Racist David Starkey' has a better ring to it imo.


----------



## Poo Flakes (Aug 14, 2011)

weltweit said:


> I am probably doing that. My trouble is that I like him (liked perhaps) I always enjoyed seeing him on Question Time giving ALL the politicians a hard time.



I can kind of see where you are coming from, when I first watched it, I felt that there may be some substance. The intellectual basis for communism, after all, is that the working classes are, effectively, 'negros' in a socioeconomic sense (i.e. persecuted, exploited, poor, no prospects). So to say that the "white have become black" could simply be a statement on the predominance of low-paid work, unemployment, and forms of discrimination are in certain white communities. I have watched Starkey numerous times, and cannot really say that his comments had any intellectual basis though. The problem is if you were to formulate such an argument it would have to be closer to the mold of Marx than Powell, something Starkey would be incapable of doing.



weltweit said:


> But I cannot square that with what he said in this recording, a lot of which is simply offensive which is exactly the reception Enoch Powell received on giving his rivers of blood speech, some small parts of which I agree with (small parts!)



I can see why you would think that, and to be honest, I am not instinctively anti-BNP (in the sense that I would protest their appearance on Question Time), I understand why their message may have some support. I am sure you can see the pretty obvious dangers and the total lack of empathy or perspective in such a viewpoint though. Starkey is just a humourous anachronism. It is the fact his, and Powell's, views are so close to the current government's that worries me.



story said:


> On the other hand, perhaps you are finding space to understand Starkey's position because yours is similar...?



So what if he does? It sounds like he has been convinced that Starkey is mad.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 14, 2011)

i'm instinctively anti-BNP and i wouldn't protest their appearance on QT either.


----------



## weltweit (Aug 14, 2011)

story said:


> ... Yes. In the same way as there was / is a BBC announcer "sound". Witness the ridiculous hoohah about Neil Nunes.
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbpointsofview/html/NF1951568?thread=3831972
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/mar/26/radio.bbc



 I have always rather liked his voice, though it is indeed incredibly deep.

I think I could tape four of my friends and there would be no way anyone could tell their skin colour from their accents.



story said:


> If you're confused, weltweit, maybe you should go back and have another look at the clip, and watch it without remembering how fond you are of Starkey's tendency to rile up his opponents.



Ok, I have gone back and watched it again. It must be the fourth time now. One thing I will say is that the other two and Emily do not give him a hard time over what are "views likely to offend". As Emily Maitlets says he does seem to equate white with good and black with bad, and that is wholly unnaceptable.


----------



## 8115 (Aug 14, 2011)

Out of interest (haven't read the whole thread sorry if this has been raised already) all this talking about gangs in the last few days, where is the evidence that gangs are a major cause of the rioting/ looting? Or have people just seen a few black kids on the tellie, thought "gangs" and run away with it? How big a problem are gangs in London/ Britain generally?


----------



## weltweit (Aug 14, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> ... He's a racist, ww. He's a racist in a way that I'm sure you are not.



Well he is quite likely to be ostracised now in much the same way that Powell was after his inflamatory speech.



littlebabyjesus said:


> ..You're gonna have to ditch him, I think.



You could be right


----------



## weltweit (Aug 14, 2011)

story said:


> On the other hand, perhaps you are finding space to understand Starkey's position because yours is similar...?



I don't hold a position that white is good and black is bad as Starkey seemed to propose and I don't think David Lammy sounds white, I think he sounds educated and middle class and there is no colour associated with that classification.



story said:


> What do you think is behind the riots, weltweit? You said earlier that you had no idea (I suggest you have a read of the thread that is asking the same question: lots of interesting discussion there) but you don't strike me as a person who is unable to form an opinion. It's been a week now: what are your thoughts on the matter?



I was not able to keep up with the massive threads on the rioting, by the time I had logged on they were already humungous but I do have some ideas.

First, the spark, the guy who was shot dead by police in Tottenham. That sparked a demonstration and that demonstration, which was genuine, developed into violence on the first night. The people who took part in the violence, the rioting and looting were almost certainly two groups, firstly hard core people, groups of people who are close to the edge legally speaking. People for whom putting a brick through a shop window and or torching a car are small things of no consequence. And they are people who know how the police operate these days which is why they were covering their faces from the cameras. They did not intend to get caught.They I believe were the first group to start the rioting in Tottenham. To say that they are dissafected with society is to state the obvious. They are the type of people that often turn peaceful demonstrations into violent confrontations.

Then there was a second group which was simply kids on the street, normal teenagers who just got involved because they were on the street at the same time and it seemed a cool thing to get involved in.

However, it is interesting to note from the Spanish Lessons thread. Spain has a much harder time economically, much higher levels of unemployment (20%) yet there are no riots (yet). So perhaps it is not a socioeconomic thing. Perhaps these people are not rioting because they are unemployed, although they may be, that is not the driver.

That there is inequality is undisputable, that there may be an underclass in Britain is likely, that people in that class have not bought into normal society, rather they have brought out of it is also likely. This group of people have nothing invested in society indeed they have very little of anything to speak of, so perhaps little to lose.

Then the unrest spread in subsequent evenings as far and wide as Manchester in the north with the same two groups I mentioned above being the drivers, although interestingly seemingly restricted to England, there was no rioting or looting in Wales or Scotland which may deserve some thinking about.

Thinking back to when I was a youth, if there had been rioting and looting in my area I would certainly have gone to have a look and my presence and that of people like me would have swelled the crowds. Would I actually have taken part in rioting or looting I can't say, perhaps if the mood was right. I don't blame the teenagers who were involved in this as much as I blame the hard core group.

Not a great analysis, but just some ideas.


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## Dr Dolittle (Aug 14, 2011)

There is definitely what you could call a 'black' accent, which combines with the regional accent, if they are of Caribbean origin. I presume it's a remnant of the West Indian accent that has been passed down from their parents or grandparents. Middle class black people like David Lammy are less likely to have it in the same way as a white middle class person is less likely to have a regional accent. You can often (but not always) tell if the person speaking on the radio is black.

That's not, of course, to express any sympathy with David Starkey.

And yes, some white people have picked up that 'black' accent. Nothing wrong with that, though comedians often make fun of it when they're making fun of young people generally.

Neil Nunnes - so that's who it is. His voice and accent take some getting used to, but he speaks as clearly as any other presenter. And I like the fact that his voice, like John Peel's, is instantly recognisable. He's already famous just for his voice, so it would be nice if he is promoted from continuity announcer to presenting a programme. I'm curious to know what sort of person he is.


----------



## Poo Flakes (Aug 14, 2011)

> i'm instinctively anti-BNP and i wouldn't protest their appearance on QT either.


The BNP are a weird fringe group that thrive on attention, rabbitting on about 1066 and the purity of 'indigenous' Britons. I just do not think about them enough to hate them. David Starkey, by contrast, is mainstream opinion, just look at weltweit - an upstanding member of the community, a leviathon among men, a hero in the midst, a dark knight, a sweet prince, a champion of champions - he _liked_ him before all this cuntery.



> Or have people just seen a few black kids on the tellie, thought "gangs" and run away with it? How big a problem are gangs in London/ Britain generally?


What do you think about these guys are lamenting the attention being given to non-rioting white working classes, or vigilantes. Not in Starkey's league, food for thought, or tripe?


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 14, 2011)

come on, weltweit may be a bit of a div at times, but he/she isn't a racist.

also, it's not either or, the whole working class wasn't divided into two categories, "rioters" and "vigilantes" ffs


----------



## laptop (Aug 14, 2011)

Poo Flakes said:


> What do you think about these guys



Spiked?

At best, narcissistic attention-whores.

There is no limit to the speculation over what they might be at worst.


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Aug 14, 2011)

8115 said:


> Out of interest (haven't read the whole thread sorry if this has been raised already) all this talking about gangs in the last few days, where is the evidence that gangs are a major cause of the rioting/ looting? Or have people just seen a few black kids on the tellie, thought "gangs" and run away with it? How big a problem are gangs in London/ Britain generally?



There was talk in the papers about Mark Duggan (questions over whose shooting by the cops seems to have sparked the riots) being gang-connected. Problem with that is that the cops have a poisonous history of pre-emptively smearing people they kill, (see IPCC thread), so nobody outside his immediate circle probably really knows for sure at this stage to what extent if any Duggan was involved with gangs and how much is just the usual smearing of someone the cops killed.

There seems to be some evidence of intelligence and organisation in the rioting and looting, but again nothing that couldn't be improvised spontanously, at least that I've heard about.

What I have heard in some accounts (no view on reliability of same is implied) was a certain amount of surprise that internicine fighting hadn't broken out where members of gang A were looting/rioting in the territory of gang B.



> Jay Kast, 24, a youth worker from East Ham who has witnessed rioting across London over the last three nights, said he was concerned that black community leaders were wrongly identifying a problem "within".
> 
> "I've seen Turkish boys, I've seen Asian boys, I've seen grown white men," he said. "They're all out there taking part." He recognised an element of opportunism in the mass looting but said an underlying cause was that many young people felt "trapped in the system". "They're disconnected from the community and they just don't care," he said.
> 
> In some senses the rioting has been unifying a cross-section of deprived young men who identify with each other, he added. Kast gave the example of how territorial markers which would usually delineate young people's residential areas – known as 'endz', 'bits' and 'gates' – appear to have melted away. "On a normal day it wouldn't be allowed – going in to someone else's area. A lot of them, on a normal day, wouldn't know each other and they might be fighting," Kast said. "Now they can go wherever they want. They're recognising themselves from the people they see on the TV [rioting]. This is bringing them together."



http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/09/london-riots-who-took-part


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## London_Calling (Aug 14, 2011)

^ But, by the time the police eventually turned up/took control, the kids had done their looting (got what they could carry) and it was often other opportunists who got bagged by panting Bill. If you could make a nice graph of who smashed the first windows and opened shop shutters, they'd be a far hight percentage of teens.

Take the Junction for example, it was deviod of police for nearly two hours.


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## 8115 (Aug 14, 2011)

I agree that intelligence and organisation to go and loot doesn't imply gangs though.  I could text all my mates saying, meet outside Hennes at 11, I'll bring a baseball bat, that doesn't make us a gang.  From the little I know about gangs (in America) there's a specific pattern of involvement etc etc that makes it difficult for people to leave/ avoid criminal activity.  People are just saying "gangs" here but actually I think it's a more technical term than people realise.


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## smmudge (Aug 14, 2011)

weltweit said:


> As Emily Maitlets says he does seem to equate white with good and black with bad, and that is wholly unnaceptable.



He doesn't have to go as far as equating one with good and one with bad to be racist. Saying _anything_ essentialist about any race, even if it isn't derogatory, is inherently racist. That's what racist means!


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## Bernie Gunther (Aug 14, 2011)

London_Calling said:


> ^ But, by the time the police eventually turned up/took control, the kids had done their looting (got what they could carry) and it was often other opportunists who got bagged by panting Bill. If you could make a nice graph of who smashed the first windows and opened shop shutters, they'd be a far hight percentage of teens.
> 
> Take the Junction for example, it was deviod of police for nearly two hours.



Good point, also it's a lot less dangerous for the cops to nick non-violent casual looters than for them to take on a couple of hundred young blokes pumped up on adrenaline and special brew who are actively looking for a ruck with them.


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## London_Calling (Aug 14, 2011)

I presume that's why we're seeing daft convictions for nicking bottled water, etc. Be interesting to see the percentage charged with nicking trainers from Foot Locker or wide screen tv's - very, very few i'd imagine. They were long-since gone.


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## weltweit (Aug 14, 2011)

London_Calling said:


> I presume that's why we're seeing daft convictions for nicking bottled water, etc. Be interesting to see the percentage charged with nicking trainers from Foot Locker or wide screen tv's - very, very few i'd imagine. They were long-since gone.



Not only were they long since gone but when they were there they had the nouse to hide their faces.


----------



## Gramsci (Aug 15, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Bill Bratton? He hasn't done anything of the sort, whatever his claims. Criminologists have a bit of a hard-on for Bratton, so a lot of his initiatives get analysed. Bratton was a great proponent of Chuck Wilson's "Broken Windows" theory, but he also presided over a couple of "zero tolerance" regimes that were effectively racist (they used racial profiling to direct resources) and left innocents dead.



Its ironic that the police action that sparked off the Brixton riot of 81 was a form of zero tolerance policing. "Operation Swamp" in Brixton was exactly that. Large numbers of police turned up for several weeks. They were stopping people etc who lived in Brixton. (Including me for carrying a black plastice bag. They searched it. It just had my laundry in it).


----------



## taffboy gwyrdd (Aug 15, 2011)

weltweit said:


> It is very hard to talk about race in todays Britain and not be branded a racist.



This is a bit of a myth IMO. I talk about "race" a fair bit (prefer to refer to "heritage" or "ethnicity" mind). Can't remember having been called a racist.


----------



## Nylock (Aug 15, 2011)

tbf though, starkey is a knob... And i don't need to back that assertion up, he opens his mouth, idiotic crap comes out, so he proves the point on his own....


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## Gramsci (Aug 15, 2011)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/14/david-starkey-ethnic-year-zero

Dreda Say Mitchell who was on Newsnight with Starkey has written about in link above.

Owen Jones the other person present with Starkey has written about it in the New Statesman:

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/08/david-starkey-black-powell


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## story (Aug 15, 2011)

Had a conversation with someone this evening who said that Starkey is a historian, whose interests are anchored in the past, so to assume that he might have anything relevant to say about something that is happening right now is to assume him to have some kind of handle on the present; which he doesn't.

(And btw, just to pre-empt anyone who is prompted to quote George Santayana at this point, what he actually said was




> Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it


 
meaning not so much that we ignore history at our peril, but that knowledge and understanding develop as a result of our attention and memory.)


----------



## story (Aug 15, 2011)

Gramsci said:


> http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/14/david-starkey-ethnic-year-zero
> 
> Dreda Say Mitchell who was on Newsnight with Starkey has written about in link above.
> 
> ...



Thanks for posting those, Gramsci.



> It is, as anyone who's tried it will know, very difficult to argue with crass stupidity. What do you make of someone who thinks using "Jamaican" slang encourages youth to torch buildings? You may as well argue that speaking with an upper-class accent encourages people to hunt foxes. The host, Emily Maitlis, Jones and I had a go at challenging Starkey's views. But it's difficult to challenge someone who offers you no evidence apart from someone's text message and a spell teaching in Jamie Oliver's Dream School.





> There is strong competition for the lowest point of Starkey's rant -- but when he embarked on an impression of a "patwa" accent, I could barely believe what I was watching. It was Enoch Powell meets Alan Partridge.





> As for riots -- well, Starkey has found an all-too-convenient way of blaming black people for riots that involved people from a whole range of ethnic backgrounds. Even if the looters weren't black, they had somehow "become" black.





> Now that peace has returned to our communities, we have time to think through these explanations. But my fear is that -- with an understandable backlash underway -- Starkey's comments could prove to be a disastrous turning point. He has put race at the top of the agenda when millions are scared and angry. As some took to the streets in support of Enoch Powell's "river of blood", there will be whispers across the country "that Starkey has a point".


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 15, 2011)

Poo Flakes said:


> It is just pathological right-wing crap. They do not listen to rap music, so it must be that.
> 
> It is pretty obvious why he said it, and why right-wing newspapers are backing him. This crap will surface even more in the recession. The one that makes me cringe: "the _Eastern Europeans/Africans/Russians/Chinese_ are better qualified and work harder than our unemployed youth". A myth largely perpetuated by far right (by our political spectrum) Eastern Europeans, and by individuals who could not have possibly investigated it objectively (keep in mind immigrants are generally the lowest paid, so by definition would be amongst the least productive).



The hilarious (if you're into deep irony, that is) thing being that every single one of those immigarnt groupings has been attacked by the right over the past 100 years for being feckless, bone-idle scroungers who shouldn't be allowed to sully the shores of this precious island.

Consistency (except in hate) has never been a strong point of the right.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 15, 2011)

Dr Dolittle said:


> There is definitely what you could call a 'black' accent, which combines with the regional accent, if they are of Caribbean origin. I presume it's a remnant of the West Indian accent that has been passed down from their parents or grandparents.



I don't agree. I'm certain of the existence of an urban working class accent w/r/t "the youth", but in my experience you can't differentiate the skin-colour of the speaker through it - they all sound similarly rapid-fire, loud and redundant, what with the constant "ygetmeblud?"s and "yunnerstanwha'msaying?"s.



> Middle class black people like David Lammy are less likely to have it in the same way as a white middle class person is less likely to have a regional accent. You can often (but not always) tell if the person speaking on the radio is black.



You should see whether that skill is marketable. 



> That's not, of course, to express any sympathy with David Starkey.
> 
> And yes, some white people have picked up that 'black' accent. Nothing wrong with that, though comedians often make fun of it when they're making fun of young people generally.



Black comedians have been making fun of it for at least 20 years, sometimes longer. I saw a black comic at the Windsor Castle in Deptford back in about 1983 who did a five minute _spiel_ about this kid hanging round outside his house checking out his daughter whose patois was so thick that even the comedian had a hard time understanding it, with the punchline of the kid having an Irish surname and living in Kilburn.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 15, 2011)

Has anyone seen this?



> Yet, for all my dislike of what he said, I feel uneasy about the howling, strident anger that has been unleashed against him. This is partly because I think that, in the current debate about our social malaise, it is wrong to silence any voice through a form of politically correct McCarthyism.
> We will achieve nothing if we create a mood of absolute conformity by hurling accusations of racism at those with whom we disagree. Freedom of speech is too important to become another casualty of the riots.
> More importantly, I feel that Dr Starkey, in his own clumsy way, may have stumbled on a difficult truth about the influence of black youth culture.
> For, despite the attempts of some apologists to dress up the looting as a political act against an oppressive Tory establishment, the fact is that the ethos of materialism — or ‘bling’ to use the street term — that pervades urban black youth played a major part in the widespread criminality perpetrated by rioters of all races.
> Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2026053/David-Starkey-Newsnight-Gangsta-culture-poison-spreading-youths-races.html#ixzz1V6e6gF60​



Tony Sewell is the academic who also said this



> *More than racism, I now firmly believe that the main problem holding back black boys academically is their over-feminised upbringing*. First, because with the onset of adolescence there is no male role model to provide guidance and lock down the destructive instincts that exist within all males. Second, in the absence of such a figure a boy will seek out an alternative. This will usually be among dominant male figures, all too often found in gangs. This is the space where there is a kind of hierarchy, a ritual and, of course, a sense of belonging.
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/15/black-boys-too-feminised-fathers



Yeah, blame it on single mothers. How lazy can you get? What does that say about those boys who come from so-called nuclear families who go on to commit crime? Join the dots with Tony.


----------



## Poo Flakes (Aug 15, 2011)

The only reason the right-wing is backing Starkey is because he is one of them.  If you take down Starkey what happens to the countless other right (and left) 'commentators' who wade into issue upon issue equipped with nothing but a vaguely posh accent, inflammatory views and a library of politician and journalist memoirs?  What happens to Fraser Nelson's opinion on wage rigidity, Dominic Lawson's opinion on the statistical distribution of weather patterns over long periods of time, Toby Young's opinion on education, or Peter Hitchens view on the distribution of fuel poverty amongst retirees?



nino_savatte said:


> Tony Sewell is the academic who also said this



If his views reflect the current state of criminological research, god help us.  However, he is the CEO of a group called "Generating Genius", 'nuff said really.


----------



## _angel_ (Aug 15, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> Has anyone seen this?
> 
> Tony Sewell is the academic who also said this
> 
> Yeah, blame it on single mothers. How lazy can you get? What does that say about those boys who come from so-called nuclear families who go on to commit crime? Join the dots with Tony.



And as if there are no white single mum households.
"Over feminised" my arse.

If most of the perpetrators are male, how does he get to blaming women for this. Also got no idea why people are banging on about the race element.


----------



## London_Calling (Aug 15, 2011)

You're not saying parenting is not a factor though?


----------



## weltweit (Aug 15, 2011)

_angel_ said:


> ... Also got no idea why people are banging on about the race element.



Quite right, I agree, there were people of all races and all colours involved ..
Saying race is involved is just knee jerk ..


----------



## _angel_ (Aug 15, 2011)

London_Calling said:


> You're not saying parenting is not a factor though?


They weren't all kids you know, how far back do we shift the blame.
Does anyone actually even know what % of people involved were from x type of "background", housing type, etc, or is there just a lot of hot air speculation going on.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 15, 2011)

Poo Flakes said:


> If his views reflect the current state of criminological research, god help us.



Fortunately for us, and for criminology. Criminology may look for causes, but it doesn't attribute them without there being a firm evidential base, and there isn't a firm evidential base for Sewell's contentions, because we don't count opinion pieces written for newspapers.



> However, he is the CEO of a group called "Generating Genius", 'nuff said really.



Sounds like a sperm-donation thing. He probably sits in his office "generating genius" several times a day.


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 15, 2011)

weltweit said:


> Quite right, I agree, there were people of all races and all colours involved ..
> Saying race is involved is just knee jerk ..



Sadly, I've come across a few who insist on saying that it's down to ethnics/minorities etc. Nothing you can say will change their mind.


----------



## _angel_ (Aug 15, 2011)

krtek a houby said:


> Sadly, I've come across a few who insist on saying that it's down to ethnics/minorities etc. Nothing you can say will change their mind.


One of my sisters inlaws has been frothing on about it all being the fault of "muslims". I dunno if he's been watching the same riots as me ??????


----------



## London_Calling (Aug 15, 2011)

_angel_ said:


> They weren't all kids you know, how far back do we shift the blame.
> Does anyone actually even know what % of people involved were from x type of "background", housing type, etc, or is there just a lot of hot air speculation going on.


We're not going to know by statistics because the people who initiated the unrest - teenagers in my view - were long gone with their trainers and flat screens befroe the police arrived to bag the later opportunists.


_angel_ said:


> One of my sisters inlaws has been frothing on about it all being the fault of "muslims". I dunno if he's been watching the same riots as me ??????


A popular view around my way is the unrest in Hackney had a higher Asian element to it. Absolutely no way of knowing that but it's a popular perception atm.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 15, 2011)

London_Calling said:


> A popular view around my way is the unrest in Hackney had a higher Asian element to it. Absolutely no way of knowing that but it's a popular perception atm.



Where is your way and who makes up this  so called 'popular view'?


----------



## London_Calling (Aug 15, 2011)

Why do you want to know? Is it going to make a difference to you?


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 15, 2011)

_angel_ said:


> One of my sisters inlaws has been frothing on about it all being the fault of "muslims". I dunno if he's been watching the same riots as me ??????


 mebbe he's been watching Syria unfold 

Colleague at work said he wasn't going to say who were "the main culprits" in case I called him racist!


----------



## elbows (Aug 15, 2011)

London_Calling said:


> Why do you want to know? Is it going to make a difference to you?



I'd sure like to know, since I've heard nobody coming out with that sort of thing.

I'll also take this opportunity to say how depressed I remain at the relative lack of attention this forum paid to the Birmingham deaths.


----------



## weltweit (Aug 15, 2011)

elbows said:


> ... I'll also take this opportunity to say how depressed I remain at the relative lack of attention this forum paid to the Birmingham deaths.



Perhaps it could do with its own thread?


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 15, 2011)

_angel_ said:


> And as if there are no white single mum households.
> "Over feminised" my arse.
> 
> If most of the perpetrators are male, how does he get to blaming women for this. Also got no idea why people are banging on about the race element.



Exactly. This has brought all the class and racial bigots and social moralists out of the woodwork. It's also as if to say anything that is regarded as traditionally female is somehow wrong.


----------



## Zabo (Aug 15, 2011)

> David Starkey is an archetypically successful white man, but when you close your eyes, he looks black. 01:36:50 PM August 13, 2011 from web
> 
> David Starkey's words must be viewed in context. He's always been a cunt. 01:13:37 PM August 13, 2011 from web
> 
> Dear BBC, why ask David Starkey for his thoughts on anything important? Next: "Henry VIII, a hoody view." 09:15:47 AM August 13, 2011 from web



_Jeremy Hardy - Twitter _

_ _


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 15, 2011)

Ed West wades in with his contribution to Starkey's defence.



> It would be an exaggeration to suggest that this has happened, and yet these riots do have a racial aspect, even if they were not race riots as such (few things are entirely about race, after all). In London and Birmingham roughly 60-70 per cent of rioters were black (I’m guessing), and yet a very large minority of looters during the US riots of the late 1960s were white – and they were still “race riots”, in that they sprung from America’s predominantly black urban ghettos and its associated problems. Many of those ghettos have since got considerably worse, and though for geographic, demographic and other reasons Britain’s are not anything like as bad in terms of crime or segregation, to argue that Powell’s prediction is entirely false would take a particularly blinkered and dull-witted mind.
> Our country and its social mores have changed immeasurably, and for the worse, within one lifetime – and to pretend that immigration has not played a significant part is to take intellectual dishonesty to Walter Mitty levels.
> http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/e...enoch-powell-got-wrong-and-what-he-got-right/



More racialisation. None of the real issues are dealt with, but that's Ed West. He describes Enoch Powell's River of Blood Speech as a "prophecy". In what sense was it 'prophetic'? Perhaps I missed that meeting...


----------



## Jeff Robinson (Aug 15, 2011)

little_legs said:


>




Sweet suffering fuck.


----------



## Jeff Robinson (Aug 15, 2011)




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## Poo Flakes (Aug 15, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> More racialisation.



The way the racialisation dimension is being developed misses crucial points though. If we were to accept that these were predominantly black people rioting. It is pretty obvious, then, the cause of the riots: Mark Duggan (and the either perceived, or actual, persecution of the black community in England by the Metropolitan Police). If we accept that there is a racial element to this, I would imagine it is a pretty bad idea to start saying black 'gangster' culture was the cause of the rioting - unless it is just code for "we are siding with the police", whipping up the population, though, seems socially dangerous to me.


----------



## Dr Dolittle (Aug 15, 2011)

Tony Sewell's crap about boys being 'feminised' by the absense of a father comes straight from Freud - the idea that boys need a 'father figure' to identify with.

And if it was true that all males have "destructive instincts", then logically it would follow that those boys would be better off without dads.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 16, 2011)

London_Calling said:


> Why do you want to know? Is it going to make a difference to you?


Why would you answer in such a combative way? You made a statement based on your experiences, I have not had this experience at all over the last week so am curious as to why/who is saying this to you.


----------



## London_Calling (Aug 16, 2011)

Right, I was "combative"....


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 16, 2011)

London_Calling said:


> Right, I was "combative"....



Yes...you did the equivalent of telling me it's none of my business. Weird.


----------



## London_Calling (Aug 16, 2011)

Right "so called". Weird.


----------



## _angel_ (Aug 16, 2011)

Dr Dolittle said:


> Tony Sewell's crap about boys being 'feminised' by the absense of a father comes straight from Freud - the idea that boys need a 'father figure' to identify with.
> 
> And if it was true that all males have "destructive instincts", then logically it would follow that those boys would be better off without dads.



Why is it only boys that need to have Dads? If boys were really being "feminised" would they be out rioting and destroying things (behaviour associated with masculinity/machissmo).

Does anyone say anything about single Dads in the same disparaging way (ie their daughters are being "masculinised"). It's all just crap, really.


----------



## dylans (Aug 16, 2011)

_angel_ said:


> Why is it only boys that need to have Dads? If boys were really being "feminised" would they be out rioting and destroying things (behaviour associated with masculinity/machissmo).
> 
> Does anyone say anything about single Dads in the same disparaging way (ie their daughters are being "masculinised"). It's all just crap, really.


Single dad's either (A) don't exist or (B) are we are patronised as "heroes" doing something "unnatural".


----------



## roctrevezel (Aug 16, 2011)

Someone on TV has just said there has been an opinion poll with 81% of people agreeing with Starkey.
Has anyone any idea what poll, and where it has been published?


----------



## _angel_ (Aug 16, 2011)

dylans said:


> Single dad's either (A) don't exist or (B) are we are patronised as "heroes" doing something "unnatural".


Yeah, they don't exist or are "heroes" like you said. Is that better or worse than being a slag who only got pregnant to get a council house, with a different man every other week, who caused the moral collapse of society/ global warming/ the financial crisis????


----------



## dylans (Aug 16, 2011)

_angel_ said:


> Yeah, they don't exist or are "heroes" like you said. Is that better or worse than being a slag who only got pregnant to get a council house, with a different man every other week, who caused the moral collapse of society/ global warming/ the financial crisis????


I think it's just the other side of the same coin. Neither parenting models are considered the "perfect ideal." Both are presumed to be sub standard and therefore examples of the "failure" of the nuclear family when the reality is that love comes in many forms. A two parent family may also be neglectful and chaotic and a loving single mom or dad can raise healthy well adjusted children just as well as any other kind of family. The issue isn't how many parents a child has, or whether they are male or female, the issue is a loving, caring and stable relationship between parents and children. This focus on single parents is bollocks. Its not the number of parents that matters, or whether they are male or female, its the quality of parenting


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 16, 2011)

Poo Flakes said:


> The way the racialisation dimension is being developed misses crucial points though. If we were to accept that these were predominantly black people rioting. It is pretty obvious, then, the cause of the riots: Mark Duggan (and the either perceived, or actual, persecution of the black community in England by the Metropolitan Police). If we accept that there is a racial element to this, I would imagine it is a pretty bad idea to start saying black 'gangster' culture was the cause of the rioting - unless it is just code for "we are siding with the police", whipping up the population, though, seems socially dangerous to me.



Gangsta rap is an easy target but it's also been described by many self-styled social commentators as a socio-cultural contaminant. In the 1950's America, R&B was described in much the same terms. Punk was also seen to be 'dangerous'. So much so that the Sex Pistols _God Save the Queen_ was banned from airplay. It still made it to Number One without the all important BBC's seal of approval. I remember calls for the Clash's single _Bankrobber_ to be banned.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 16, 2011)

LMer Brendan O'Neill chips in with more shite about "white chavs becoming black".



> Anyone who has met a white working-class lad or lass aged between 11 and 19 will know that David Starkey had a point when he said, rather crudely, that white chavs “have become black”. One of the curiosities of the gym that I go to in Lambeth in South London is that all the white teens speak in a bizarre, so-called “black accent”, while the black guys in their mid to late 30s who run the gym speak in an accent that is far more instantly recognisable as “London”. They sound a lot more like me than the white kids do. (Which isn’t surprising – they actually are more like me than the white kids are, having likewise been brought up in working-class parts of London in that now seemingly distant era of the 1980s and 90s.



What is a "black accent"? I wonder which gym he goes to. I bet it's not a council run gym.



> In truth, it is Britain’s own denigration of white working-class culture and lifestyles, the political and media classes’ ceaseless war of words against the way the white working classes live, love, speak and act, which communicates to white youngsters the message: “Your culture is shit. Find another one.”
> http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/b...ing-class-culture-that-has-turned-kids-black/



Notice how he bangs on about "white working class culture" but doesn't actually tell us what it is. Would he have said this in the 1950's when rock n roll invaded these shores? Probably not, because it was seen as 'white'.  Rock n roll was actually a hybrid of R&B, country and possibly folk.


----------



## Poo Flakes (Aug 16, 2011)

> they actually are more like me than the white kids are, having likewise been brought up in working-class parts of London in that now seemingly distant era of the 1980s and 90s



O'Neill is dressing up a fairly mundane point that pretty much anyone could identify with, into inflammatory racism. I, as a man in my thirties, have more in common with another man in his thirties than with a bunch of people in their teens. I would love to see in the 1950s if younger generations were being accused of joining another ethnic group.



> Gangsta rap is an easy target but it's also been described by many self-styled social commentators as a socio-cultural contaminant. In the 1950's America, R&B was described in much the same terms. Punk was also seen to be 'dangerous'.



Punk was never ascribed to brown people, R&B to yellow people, or Country and Western to the Vietnamese. The undertones coming from the right-wing is so dangerous in this regard. To say "they have become black" is just another level from saying rap music is dangerous. You get the impression a lot of these people are feeling the relief of a Conservative government when good ol' British values is the norm. How long before O'Neill or Starkey claim that a bit of racial profiling is good for society?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 16, 2011)

dylans said:


> I think it's just the other side of the same coin. Neither parenting models are considered the "perfect ideal." Both are presumed to be sub standard and therefore examples of the "failure" of the nuclear family when the reality is that love comes in many forms. A two parent family may also be neglectful and chaotic and a loving single mom or dad can raise healthy well adjusted children just as well as any other kind of family. The issue isn't how many parents a child has, or whether they are male or female, the issue is a loving, caring and stable relationship between parents and children. This focus on single parents is bollocks. Its not the number of parents that matters, or whether they are male or female, its the quality of parenting



The ridiculousness of the argument residing in the fact that "the nuclear family" concept was a middle-class mid-Victorian artefact which only existed because the model of the "extended family" (a much more "universal" model of familial social relations) had been destroyed or at least crippled by industrialisation. The nuclear family has always been tosh, but because it suits the political and social prejudices of so many people to believe otherwise, we're stuck with *that* unnatural model as a norm, rather than acknowledging that there isn't really a nuclear family except as an idealised middle-class fantasy, there's just what we've all, individually and collectively, got.


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 16, 2011)

Starkey may have had a rosy fairy tale family upbringing but he's still a bastard


----------



## butchersapron (Aug 16, 2011)

Eh? Are you saying he had it easy or hard?


----------



## DotCommunist (Aug 16, 2011)

He could easily play mr toad in a live action version of Wind in The Willows


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 16, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Eh? Are you saying he had it easy or hard?


eh? eh? eh?


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 16, 2011)

Poo Flakes said:


> O'Neill is dressing up a fairly mundane point that pretty much anyone could identify with, into inflammatory racism. I, as a man in my thirties, have more in common with another man in his thirties than with a bunch of people in their teens. I would love to see in the 1950s if younger generations were being accused of joining another ethnic group.
> 
> Punk was never ascribed to brown people, R&B to yellow people, or Country and Western to the Vietnamese. The undertones coming from the right-wing is so dangerous in this regard. To say "they have become black" is just another level from saying rap music is dangerous. You get the impression a lot of these people are feeling the relief of a Conservative government when good ol' British values is the norm. How long before O'Neill or Starkey claim that a bit of racial profiling is good for society?



The film _American Graffiti_ offers us a window into the thinking of 1950's white Americans. As I recall, one of the parents berates his child for listening to "race music", the common term for R&B in those days. It is true that white America saw R&B as a socio-cultural threat, which they claimed would contaminate their sprogs. This line was supported by the usual range of Xtian groups and Dixiecrat types.


----------



## butchersapron (Aug 16, 2011)

krtek a houby said:


> eh? eh? eh?


This:



> Starkey may have had a rosy fairy tale family upbringing...



what does it mean?


----------



## Captain Hurrah (Aug 16, 2011)

krtek a houby said:


> Starkey may have had a rosy fairy tale family upbringing but he's still a bastard


 
I've known a bloke who went to grammar school with him. He said he was a bit of a shit then, apparently, but he comes from a poor manual working class family, and was brought up on a council estate.


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 16, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> This:
> 
> what does it mean?


Exactly what it says


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 16, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> LMer Brendan O'Neill chips in with more shite about "white chavs becoming black".



It's Brendan O'Niell. Enough said. Most people get over controversialism in their early 20s. Brendan hasn't matured that far, yet.



> What is a "black accent"? I wonder which gym he goes to. I bet it's not a council run gym.



He's probably been watching Ali G videos.



> Notice how he bangs on about "white working class culture" but doesn't actually tell us what it is. Would he have said this in the 1950's when rock n roll invaded these shores? Probably not, because it was seen as 'white'. Rock n roll was actually a hybrid of R&B, country and possibly folk.



And bluegrass (don't be callin' bluegrass "country" to any down-home folks, son. They'll shoot you like a moonshiner would shoot a revenooer!). Most of the early rock 'n' rollers were big fans of bluegrass and other "old-time" folk stuff. Presley and Cash were both Bill Monroe fans who re-recorded Monroe songs at the start of their careers.


----------



## butchersapron (Aug 16, 2011)

krtek a houby said:


> Exactly what it says


OK, do it that way. what is a 'a rosy fairy tale family upbringing'?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 16, 2011)

Poo Flakes said:


> O'Neill is dressing up a fairly mundane point that pretty much anyone could identify with, into inflammatory racism. I, as a man in my thirties, have more in common with another man in his thirties than with a bunch of people in their teens. I would love to see in the 1950s if younger generations were being accused of joining another ethnic group.


Yep.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 16, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> It's Brendan O'Niell. Enough said. Most people get over controversialism in their early 20s. Brendan hasn't matured that far, yet.
> 
> He's probably been watching Ali G videos.
> 
> And bluegrass (don't be callin' bluegrass "country" to any down-home folks, son. They'll shoot you like a moonshiner would shoot a revenooer!). Most of the early rock 'n' rollers were big fans of bluegrass and other "old-time" folk stuff. Presley and Cash were both Bill Monroe fans who re-recorded Monroe songs at the start of their careers.



Yep, the way the white-dominated music industry separated two forms of folk music in the 1930's and called one "country" and the other "blues" is quite instructive.

Then there's the artificial distinction between zydeco and cajun, which are sonically similar, yet are played by blacks and whites respectively.


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 16, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> OK, do it that way. what is a 'a rosy fairy tale family upbringing'?



Supposedly a "traditional" one. He seems to be espousing mythical family values. I'm saying whether he had one of those upbringings or not, he still a bastard.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 16, 2011)

krtek a houby said:


> Exactly what it says



In which case you're wrong. He (according to his own account and those of people who knew him) grew up in pretty abject poverty, with rather brutal parenting.


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 16, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> In which case you're wrong. He (according to his own account and those of people who knew him) grew up in pretty abject poverty, with rather brutal parenting.


 "may", I said


----------



## butchersapron (Aug 16, 2011)

krtek a houby said:


> "may", I said


Yes, the may in your post meant that he had - it meant _'despite_ having experienced a rosy fairy tale family upbringing ', not that he may or may not have grown up in a rosy fairy tale family upbringing.


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 16, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Yes, the may in your postt meant that he had - it meant 'despite', not that he may or may not have.


The *may* in my "postt" meant *may* - not despite. You must be a wretched person to live with, constantly picking over individuals every utterance to their endless exasperation, reading into every statement or question your own agendas (sic) and paranoid scrutiny.


----------



## butchersapron (Aug 16, 2011)

krtek a houby said:


> The *may* in my "postt" meant *may* - not despite. You must be a wretched person to live with, constantly picking over individuals every utterance to their endless exasperation, reading into every statement or question your own agendas (sic) and paranoid scrutiny.


No it didn't. The later 'but' confirms it. Why lie over something so petty?


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 16, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> No it didn't. The later 'but' confirms it. Why lie over something so petty?


 Why read into my posts stuff that isn't there, O obsessive one?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 16, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> Yep, the way the white-dominated music industry separated two forms of folk music in the 1930's and called one "country" and the other "blues" is quite instructive.



Just as "country" itself has always had two streams - Nashville (big hats, pedal steel overdubbed onto everything, lots of hairspray and plenty of cliché) and anything that doesn't have an "achey-breaky heart", basically.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 16, 2011)

krtek a houby said:


> "may", I said



So if you don't know, why say what you said, in the way you said it, at all? It doesn't really make sense.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 16, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Just as "country" itself has always had two streams - Nashville (big hats, pedal steel overdubbed onto everything, lots of hairspray and plenty of cliché) and anything that doesn't have an "achey-breaky heart", basically.



Sure, country purists spat out their grits when they heard/saw the pop country of the late 50's/early 60's. 

I've gotta say, I'm a sucker for a bit of pedal steel.


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 16, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> So if you don't know, why say what you said, in the way you said it, at all? It doesn't really make sense.



I was making the now somewhat laboured point that whatever his background is, his defence of traditonal mythical families that he appears to be espousing and they way he goes about it makes him a bastard/racist/twat etc etc etc


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 16, 2011)

you mean he's a racist wanker you verbose twat


----------



## Poo Flakes (Aug 16, 2011)

> The film _American Graffiti_ offers us a window into the thinking of 1950's white Americans. As I recall, one of the parents berates his child for listening to "race music", the common term for R&B in those days. It is true that white America saw R&B as a socio-cultural threat, which they claimed would contaminate their sprogs. This line was supported by the usual range of Xtian groups and Dixiecrat types.



I thought about R&B being ascribed to race; mainly because there seems to be a lot of black R&B artists - never thought anyone would claim listening to R&B could "make you black", but it was the 1950s I guess.  Same goes for the whole Dixie thing with country and western music.  I find it amazing that mainstream views have not moved on since this time.



roctrevezel said:


> Someone on TV has just said there has been an opinion poll with 81% of people agreeing with Starkey.
> Has anyone any idea what poll, and where it has been published?



Go here if he has not mentioned the poll, it is probably not worth thinking about.  If it concerns you, leave a comment - he normally responds to questions like that.


----------



## Luther Blissett (Aug 16, 2011)

Again with the rapping ... this one's the shiznit


It was like Enoch Powell meets Alan Partridge: http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/08/david-starkey-black-powell


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 16, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> you mean he's a racist wanker you verbose twat


 Heeeeeeeeeere's Pickman


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 16, 2011)

krtek a houby said:


> Heeeeeeeeeere's Pickman


you really do have shit for brains.


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 16, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> you really do have shit for brains.



And faecal matter stalking me


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 16, 2011)

krtek a houby said:


> And faecal matter stalking me


paranoid too i see


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> What is a "black accent"? I wonder which gym he goes to. I bet it's not a council run gym.



It would be disingenuous to pretend that the phenomenon that O'Neill points to doesn't exist. And the thing is that the way of speaking he highlights is fake even when black kids do it.

I get the bus to work at the same time as kids are getting on to go to various schools and I hear it from the little fucking idiots all the time. It's all I need when the morning toast hasn't even gone down yet. That and old grannies with tattoos.

'Maggie, oh Maggie what did we do?'


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> Gangsta rap is an easy target but it's also been described by many self-styled social commentators as a socio-cultural contaminant. In the 1950's America, R&B was described in much the same terms. Punk was also seen to be 'dangerous'. So much so that the Sex Pistols _God Save the Queen_ was banned from airplay. It still made it to Number One without the all important BBC's seal of approval. I remember calls for the Clash's single _Bankrobber_ to be banned.



Lyrically, Bankrobber was one of the most cringeworthy things the Clash ever did. Apart from that it was quite good.

The difference is that R&B and punk didn't usually glorify murder and rape as does some of the 'Gangsta' shit.


----------



## phildwyer (Aug 16, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> In which case you're wrong. He (according to his own account and those of people who knew him) grew up in pretty abject poverty, with rather brutal parenting.



Presumably then hıs current accent ıs just as affected as that of the chavs he attacks.


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 16, 2011)

BBC internal email exchange has apparently come to light:



> Pete, [_Rippon, Newsnight Editor_] should we get David Starkey on and see if he says something mental? Lol.
> 
> kr
> Sue
> ...



BBC leek.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 16, 2011)

phildwyer said:


> Presumably then hıs current accent ıs just as affected as that of the chavs he attacks.



Yes, something he has admitted many times. He "upgraded" his accent to fit in with his peers at university.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 16, 2011)

danny la rouge said:


> BBC internal email exchange has apparently come to light:
> 
> BBC leek.



Oh dear.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Aug 16, 2011)




----------



## phildwyer (Aug 16, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Yes, something he has admitted many times. He "upgraded" his accent to fit in with his peers at university.



And now he goes on TV denouncıng the youth for theır 'completely false' dıalect.

Hypocrısy thy name ıs Starkey.


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 16, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> Oh dear.


The link isn't the joke, you know.  It was just for people who couldn't tell it was a joke.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 16, 2011)

phildwyer said:


> And now he goes on TV denouncıng the youth for theır 'completely false' dıalect.
> 
> Hypocrısy thy name ıs Starkey.



Yup.
Still, I expect he's one of those rather crass people who believe that learning elocution has nothing in common with learning a local dialect or youthspeak. After all, he was trading up, and sees white working class people who speak an urban dialect as "trading down".

The late, great Rabbi Hugo Gryn had it right when he told Starkey that for all his learning he'd always be a boor.


----------



## Poo Flakes (Aug 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> It would be disingenuous to pretend that the phenomenon that O'Neill points to doesn't exist. And the thing is that the way of speaking he highlights is fake even when black kids do it.



The first part might be true, but to associate it with black culture is fucking moronic. You might say "a lot of young people are twats" and go on to suggest it is because they listen to crap music, swapping twat for black and crap for black in that sentence is presumably what many people object to, as it is pretty obviously right-wing hyperbole.



LLETSA said:


> The difference is that R&B and punk didn't usually glorify murder and rape as does some of the 'Gangsta' shit.



Yeah, "I am an Anarchist" did so much good for the ideology, and preached that we should all live in a society of mutual co-operation rather than competition. Where have those days gone?


----------



## butchersapron (Aug 16, 2011)

Poo Flakes said:


> The first part might be true, but to associate it with black culture is fucking moronic. You might say "a lot of young people are twats and suggest it is because they listen to crap music", swapping twat for black and crap for black in that sentence is presumably what many people object to, as it is pretty obviously right-wing hyperbole.
> 
> Yeah, "I am an Anarchist" did so much good for the ideology, and preached that we should all live in a society of mutual co-operation rather than competition. Where have those days gone?


It was _reflecting_ for fucks sake. What ideology? A very confused post there.


----------



## Poo Flakes (Aug 16, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> It was _reflecting_ for fucks sake. What ideology? A very confused post there.



So we do not interpret punk music literally? Right, just keep me right here.


----------



## butchersapron (Aug 16, 2011)

Poo Flakes said:


> So we do not interpret punk music literally? Right, just keep me right here.



There are very few things that you should interpret literally - instructions and so on are about it. So no, you shouldn't.

What ideology?


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

Poo Flakes said:


> The first part might be true, but to associate it with black culture is fucking moronic. You might say "a lot of young people are twats" and go on to suggest it is because they listen to crap music, swapping twat for black and crap for black in that sentence is presumably what many people object to, as it is pretty obviously right-wing hyperbole.
> 
> Yeah, "I am an Anarchist" did so much good for the ideology, and preached that we should all live in a society of mutual co-operation rather than competition. Where have those days gone?


 
It isn't anything to do with black culture, as I pointed out-the kind of accent the little white morons mimic is fake even when it comes from little black morons.

I don't think the 'anarchy' Johnny Rotten had in mind had anything to do with 'a society of mutual co-operation,' but the fact remains that most other forms of popular music haven't usually glorified murder and the ill treatment of women, gays etc like much 'Gangsta' shite does.


----------



## ericjarvis (Aug 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> I don't think the 'anarchy' Johnny Rotten had in mind had anything to do with 'a society of mutual co-operation,' but the fact remains that most other forms of popular music haven't usually glorified murder and the ill treatment of women, gays etc like much 'Gangsta' shite does.



Yeah right. So the song in which the singer compares his lover to a toy, invites the listener to take a feel, and threatens to imprison her in a box out of jealousy, isn't dodgy at all *. Have you listened to ANY traditional folk, blues, early rock and roll...

The history of popular music is littered with sexism of the very worst kind, and references to just about every form of violence imaginable. Admittedly you have to know the euphemisms when it comes to folk or blues, but what the hell did you think "jelly roll" is, or what "wearing green" entails? That doesn't justify the violence and misogyny in much "gangsta rap", but it's most certainly nothing unique or even new.

* Living Doll


----------



## gavman (Aug 16, 2011)

never liked starkey, the idiot royalist. but he really did go all out on newsnight, didn't he?
and like an absolute cunt, shouting everyone else down so he, a perennial media whore, could have his say YET AGAIN.

what he said, plus the way he said it....
lynch the motherfucker


----------



## gavman (Aug 16, 2011)

Bernie Gunther said:


> Isn't he a sort of professional twat though, like that sweary chef bloke?


he had a sudden surge in credibility after the 'jamie's school' tv series. he apparently managed to get some boys to show an interest in the more violent aspects of history, and suddenly he's a dr spock for teenagers. or he was until this appearance..


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

ericjarvis said:


> Yeah right. So the song in which the singer compares his lover to a toy, invites the listener to take a feel, and threatens to imprison her in a box out of jealousy, isn't dodgy at all *. Have you listened to ANY traditional folk, blues, early rock and roll...
> 
> The history of popular music is littered with sexism of the very worst kind, and references to just about every form of violence imaginable. Admittedly you have to know the euphemisms when it comes to folk or blues, but what the hell did you think "jelly roll" is, or what "wearing green" entails? That doesn't justify the violence and misogyny in much "gangsta rap", but it's most certainly nothing unique or even new.
> 
> * Living Doll


 
Who are you, Paul Gambaccini?

I'm well aware of all the commonplaces you've just tried to put me right about, but, as I said, the fact remains that murder, ill-treatment of women and gays and so on, and a 'gangsta's' lifestyle, has never been as systematically expounded and glorified as it is in gangsta rap.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> It isn't anything to do with black culture, as I pointed out-the kind of accent the little white morons mimic is fake even when it comes from little black morons.



Are you falling into a trap of thinking that the 'patois' Starkey referred to is actually something that has been 'copied' from somewhere else?

By definition a patios is not copied, it is organic and evolves. What Starkey was referring to is a Patois of type, some might even call it a dialect, it combines influences from informal and formal language forms from all over England and the world, it reflects the ethnic diversity and the influences of the people that use it.


----------



## butchersapron (Aug 16, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> Are you falling into a trap of thinking that the 'patois' Starkey referred to is actually something that has been 'copied' from somewhere else? It is a Patois of type, some might even call it a dialect, it combines influences from informal and formal language forms from all over England and the world, it reflects the ethnic diversity and the influences of the people that use it.


It's not been copied, it's been constructed here. It's as real as these posts.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 16, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> It's not been copied, it's been constructed here. It's as real as these posts.


Which is what i've just said.


----------



## butchersapron (Aug 16, 2011)

You're right 100% Rutita, i think i should have quoted someone else to make the point.


----------



## Jeff Robinson (Aug 16, 2011)

The slur against Jamacian patois what particularly disgusting. In fact, it is a dialect that can be used beautifully as anybody familar with the poetry of Linton Kwesi Johnson or the lyrics of Damian Marley will know.


----------



## rekil (Aug 16, 2011)

From the Thames Festival site.



> 13.35 – Family Cruises with the creators of Rastamouse, Genevieve Webster and Michael De Souza
> Come an' meet da creators of Rastamouse on a crucial cruise boat pon da Thames. Genevieve and Michael will be readin' from one ah dere books an' bustin' some wicked riddims from Da Easy Crew an' more. Get ready to rocksteady an' nice up da place! Irie man!
> 
> 16.25 – David Starkey
> One of Britain's leading historians, David Starkey, takes you on a journey along his favourite stretch of the River Thames. Listen to his insights and knowledge on the sights and sounds of this famous river. David is an author of many best-selling historical books and his television documentaries have received two BAFTA nominations.


----------



## Jeff Robinson (Aug 16, 2011)

He really deserves a lot of shit for this. Everybody knows he's a pundit troll, but he overplayed his hand with that performance.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 16, 2011)

copliker said:


> From the Thames Festival site.


Bizarre line up given the recent racist rantings of Starkey. Or have you just made that up?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 16, 2011)

.


----------



## rekil (Aug 16, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> Bizarre line up given the recent racist rantings of Starkey. Or have you just made that up?


I didn't even know about rastamouse til now. Or Charlie Dark.

Thames Festival program.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 16, 2011)

Ooooh, I see....protest potential.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> Are you falling into a trap of thinking that the 'patois' Starkey referred to is actually something that has been 'copied' from somewhere else?
> 
> By definition a patios is not copied, it is organic and evolves. What Starkey was referring to is a Patois of type, some might even call it a dialect, it combines influences from informal and formal language forms from all over England and the world, it reflects the ethnic diversity and the influences of the people that use it.


 
Whatever it is, it's still bollocks when people contrive to use it in place of their real accent. Especially when they're white, the little imbeciles.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

Jeff Robinson said:


> The slur against Jamacian patois what particularly disgusting. In fact, it is a dialect that can be used beautifully as anybody familar with the poetry of Linton Kwesi Johnson or the lyrics of Damian Marley will know.


 
That accent he's referring to is quite different to what's used by older Jamaicans. And, as I said, it's contrived, used in place of people's local dialects.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Whatever it is, it's still bollocks when people contrive to use it in place of their real accent. Especially when they're white, the little imbeciles.


'Their real accent'? You are missing the point. For *most*...it is their real accent, it's the dialect they speak. It is not copied. It is a pastiche, that is what Patois' are.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> That accent he's referring to is quite different to what's used by older Jamaicans. And, as I said, it's contrived, used in place of people's local dialects.



The accent/dialect/patois he is refering to is different to older Jamaicans because it's not Jamaican patois. You are making the same mistake as he has.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> 'Their real accent'? You are missing the point. For *most*...it is their real accent, it's the dialect they speak. It is not copied.



No it isn't. There are white kids- and black kids-who grow up speaking with the same accent as their parents, neighbours and other people of their UK region, and then adopt this ridiculous way of speaking due to fashion and peer pressure etc.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> The accent/dialect/patois he is refering to is different to older Jamaicans because it's not Jamaican patois. You are making the same mistake as he has.


 
I've said it isn't Jamaican patois. It's something contrived.


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Whatever it is, it's still bollocks when people contrive to use it in place of their real accent. Especially when they're white, the little imbeciles.


for a lot of inner city London kids,that patois IS their accent, in that it's been around, one way or another, for it to become the language, by default, of their environment, and the one they pick up on from very young. In their minds, it's _their_ dialect, which is what matters.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> for a lot of inner city London kids,that patois IS their accent, in that it's been around, one way or another, for it to become the language, by default, of their environment, and the one they pick up on from very young. In their minds, it's _their_ dialect, which is what matters.


 
Even if it is, it's used in a lot of other places than inner-city London. Like I said, contrived.


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Who are you, Paul Gambaccini?
> 
> I'm well aware of all the commonplaces you've just tried to put me right about, but, as I said, the fact remains that murder, ill-treatment of women and gays and so on, and a 'gangsta's' lifestyle, has never been as systematically expounded and glorified as it is in gangsta rap.


a lot of ragga is just as misogynistic and murderously homophobic


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Even if it is, it's used in a lot of other places than inner-city London. Like I said, contrived.


I don't deny that, but that STILL doesn't make it contrived, not for teenagers and the younger. It is, for better or worse, the sreet language that they heard from a very early age, and learnt from it naturally, as you do - just as I learnt naturally from the excellent standard of RP English I heard all around me (family and locality) from a very early age.
Which is why that patois, dialect, what-you-will WOULD be contrived as fuck were i ever to adopt it, but not those kids.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> a lot of ragga is just as misogynistic and murderously homophobic


 
I know. That's shit as well.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 16, 2011)

LLetsa, I feel compeled to point out to you that like Starkey you are linking gangsta rap to Jamaican Patois....As a music form, Gangsta Rap does not originate in Jamaica.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> I don't deny that, but that STILL doesn't make it contrived, not for teenagers and the younger. It is, for better or worse, the sreet language that they heard from a very early age, and learnt from it naturally, as you do - just as I learnt naturally from the excellent standard of RP English I heard all around me (family and locality) from a very early age.
> Which is why that patois, dialect, what-you-will WOULD be contrived as fuck were i ever to adopt it, but not those kids.



For most of them it isn't a 'street language' at all. You get just as many middle class kiddies, whose main view of 'the street' is from behind the windows of mummy's four wheel drive during the school run, using it, which makes it all the more ridiculous.

Even if what you're saying is true of some, it can only be a tiny minority, as most children naturally adopt the accent of their parents and other close relatives, followed by that of the majority in their neighbourhoods. For the vast majority using this artificial dialect, they contrive to use it to fit in with their peer group, and maybe sound like some dickhead whose music they listen to.


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 16, 2011)

ericjarvis said:


> The history of popular music is littered with sexism of the very worst kind, and references to just about every form of violence imaginable. Admittedly you have to know the euphemisms when it comes to folk or blues, but what the hell did you think "jelly roll" is, or what "wearing green" entails? That doesn't justify the violence and misogyny in much "gangsta rap", but it's most certainly nothing unique or even new.
> 
> * Living Doll


A lot of blues were deeply sexist and practically pornographic, however, you have to look at the context. most were written by black men, in the deep south, were it wasn't safe to write anything more defiant, or concerned with social or political issues. 
Hence, they sang about sex, women, money and blues, as code for everything else.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> LLetsa, I feel compeled to point out to you that like Starkey you are linking gangsta rap to Jamaican Patois....As a music form, Gangsta Rap does not originate in Jamaica.


 
Can you stop telling me things I already know and answering points I'm not making?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> For most of them it isn't a 'street language' at all. You get just as many middle class kiddies, whose main view of 'the street' is from behind the windows of mummy's four wheel drive during the school run, using it, which makes it all the more ridiculous.
> 
> Even if what you're saying is true of some, it can only be a tiny minority, as most children naturally adopt the accent of their parents and other close relatives, followed by that of the majority in their neighbourhoods. For the vast majority, they contrive to use it to fit in with their peer group, and maybe sound like some dickhead whose music they listen to.



Where do you live LLetsa? Who do you mix with? What young people do you interact with?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Can you stop telling me things I already know and answering points I'm not making?



I have answered the points you are making and I am also correcting the mistakes you are making by linking gangsta rap with Jamaican patois a la Starkey!


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> For most of them it isn't a 'street language' at all. You get just as many middle class kiddies, whose main view of 'the street' is from behind the windows of mummy's four wheel drive during the school run, using it, which makes it all the more ridiculous.
> 
> Even if what you're saying is true of some, it can only be a tiny minority, as most children naturally adopt the accent of their parents and other close relatives, followed by that of the majority in their neighbourhoods. For the vast majority, they contrive to use it to fit in with their peer group, and maybe sound like some dickhead whose music they listen to.


well yes, obviously for the m/c kids in the 'nice' neighbourhoods, it very certainly IS contrived - however, the same doesn't go for the kids on the estates. A class issue, unsurprisingly


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> I have answered the points you are making and I am also correcting the mistakes you are making by linking gangsta rap with Jamaican patois a la Starkey!



No you're not. Either read what I actually say or fuck off.


----------



## Jeff Robinson (Aug 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> That accent he's referring to is quite different to what's used by older Jamaicans. And, as I said, it's contrived, used in place of people's local dialects.



How do you know this? Local dialects and langauges in general are not static entities, they evolve with time and are influenced by the patchwork shifts in the cultural make up of various communities. White kids that "talk black" are not neceassarily acting in a contrived manner either, it may be the product of hanging out with lots of black friends for example. There's no reason to judge them for it, anymore than there is to judge a black person who speaks with received pronunciation (or "sounds white" as Davie Snarky puts it).


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> No you're not. Either read what I actually say or fuck off.



I have read what you have posted and I have responded appropriately. On a similar vein, fuck off yourself.

I think people have been pretty patient with you so far, you claim to know stuff but don't post as if you do.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> well yes, obviously for the m/c kids in the 'nice' neighbourhoods, it very certainly IS contrived - however, the same doesn't go for the kids on the estates. A class issue, unsurprisingly



No it isn't a class issue. Not when 'the kids on the estates' (who are not the only working class kids nor even the majority of working class kids-and, what's more, don't form a majority of those who speak with the accent in question) grow up speaking with the same accent as their parents and neighbourhood/region and then adopt this other accent when they fall under different influences.

You're talking as though most 'kids on the etstaes' bring themselves/each other up. Some might, most don't.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 16, 2011)

Jeff Robinson said:


> How do you know this? Local dialects and langauges in general are not static entities, they evolve with time and are influenced by the patchwork shifts in the cultural make up of various communities. White kids that "talk black" are not neceassarily acting in a contrived manner either, it may be the product of hanging out with lots of black friends for example. There's no reason to judge them for it, anymore than there is to judge a black person who speaks with received pronunciation (or "sounds white" as Davie Snarky puts it).



Perhaps lletsa would suggest a Black person with a cockney accent is 'speaking' White?


----------



## Jeff Robinson (Aug 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> No it isn't. There are white kids- and black kids-who grow up speaking with the same accent as their parents, neighbours and other people of their UK region, and then adopt this ridiculous way of speaking due to fashion and peer pressure etc.



1. Why is it "ridiculous"?
2. So what if peer pressure and fashion influence the way people talk? Did you just copy the way your parents spoke when you were growing up?


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

Jeff Robinson said:


> How do you know this? Local dialects and langauges in general are not static entities, they evolve with time and are influenced by the patchwork shifts in the cultural make up of various communities. White kids that "talk black" are not neceassarily acting in a contrived manner either, it may be the product of hanging out with lots of black friends for example. There's no reason to judge them for it, anymore than there is to judge a black person who speaks with received pronunciation (or "sounds white" as Davie Snarky puts it).


 
I bet you most kids who talk like that don't even have any black friends. Like I said, on the bus in the morning, blacks form about 2% of the kids I encounter for most of the journey. There are a lot more Asians, and guess what? They talk like that as well, and are rightly mocked for it by Asian comedians (and one Jewish comedian.)

I wish you'd all stop trying to be down with the kids. It's unbecoming of middle aged men. And women.

And nobody can escape my judgement.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> No it isn't a class issue. Not when 'the kids on the estates' (who are not the only working class kids nor even the majority of worlking class kids-and, what's more, don't form a majority of those who speak with the accent in question) grow up speaking with the same accent as their parents and neighbourhood/region and then adopt this other accent when they fall under different influences.
> 
> You're talking as though most 'kids on the etstaes' bring themselves/each other up. Some might, most don't.



OFFS! A patois is a mix...where language influences converge and a dialect evolves. Think about the average inner city estate...imagine the influences accent/language etc that the children bring to eachother from both their ethnic backgrounds and current interests. Those things come together and create a 'mode' of communication, a patois!


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 16, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> Those things come together and create a 'mode' of communication, a patios!



don't get me started on patios


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

Jeff Robinson said:


> 1. Why is it "ridiculous"?
> 2. So what if peer pressure and fashion influence the way people talk? Did you just copy the way your parents spoke when you were growing up?



It's ridiculous because, like I said, it's contrived. White kids trying to sound black could never be anything other than ridiculous.

And no, I didn't just copy the way my parents spoke (that isn't what I said people simply do anyway). My generation introduced some innovations into the local accent, which were also pretty ridiculous, even to us.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> OFFS! A patois is a mix...where language influences converge and a dialect evolves. Think about the average inner city estate...imagine the influences accent/language etc that the children bring to eachother from both their ethnic backgrounds and current interests. Those things come together and create a 'mode' of communication, a patois!


 
The point, as I keep having to repeat, is that it's far from being spoken only in inner-city estates.

I wish you'd all stop masturbating to this inner-city beat (man.)


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> And nobody can escape my judgement.



Cripes! You are very scary.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> Cripes! You are very scary.


 
No I'm not. Just proudly intolerant, especially of imbeciles.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> Perhaps lletsa would suggest a Black person with a cockney accent is 'speaking' White?


 
Are you for real?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> The point, as I keep having to repeat, is that it's far from being spoken only in inner-city estates.



I know that, a used the scenario of the estate to provide a context for how this language form has evolved.

Magnify that  imaginary estate to the Streets of London for example and leave it to brew for 20-30 years....


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> I know that, a used the scenario of the estate to provide a context for how this language form has evolved.
> 
> Magnify that imaginary estate to the Streets of London for example and leave it to brew for 20-30 years....



I'll leave you to your idiocies. I'm not even fucking bothered one way or the other about this anyway really.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> I'm not even fucking bothered one way or the other about this anyway really.



Which is possibly why you are getting it all so wrong. Had you the same experiences/knowledge as others here, you would probably care and understand a little more than you obviously do now.


----------



## Jeff Robinson (Aug 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> It's ridiculous because, like I said, it's contrived. White kids trying to sound black could never be anything other than ridiculous.
> 
> And no, I didn't just copy the way my parents spoke (that isn't what I said people simply do anyway). My generation introduced some innovations into the local accent, which were also pretty ridiculous, even to us.



Its not necessarily a one way street - white kids becoming black or vice versa - its also about convergence of dialects - as Rutita1 says, that's what patois means. It's just what happens in multicultural societies, doesn't necessarily do any harm if you're not close minded about it and it can be, and often is, the imputus for new expessive forms of dialects. I'm sure your generation's innovations to your local accent, ridiculous as they may have been, didn't really do much harm.


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> No it isn't a class issue. Not when 'the kids on the estates' (who are not the only working class kids nor even the majority of worlking class kids-and, what's more, don't form a majority of those who speak with the accent in question) grow up speaking with the same accent as their parents and neighbourhood/region and then adopt this other accent when they fall under different influences.
> 
> You're talking as though most 'kids on the etstaes' bring themselves/each other up. Some might, most don't.


that's missing the point; you learn language off all sorts - in this case, from the older contemporaries and peers, I agree, but also the lingering remnants of jamaican/nigerian whatever that their parents inherited, from everyday life all around them, from their parent's w/c class cockney which also incorporates those influences. hence why there is a distinctive anglo-asian accent, in London anyway.
I can only conclude we have very different experiences of inner city youth, because mine informs me that it really ISN'T that simple as teenage wannabe gangsters adopting the dialect to 'stay cool and blessed'. The various dialects and slangs are too intermingled, from too early on. I regularly hear 6- and 7-year-olds speaking that patois, naturally and unselfconsciously.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> White kids trying to sound black could never be anything other than ridiculous.


like the rolling stones and the beatles you mean?


3:18 in


2:10 in


----------



## Jeff Robinson (Aug 16, 2011)

http://www.davidosler.com/2011/08/david-starkey-‘white-negroes’-are-nothing-new/


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> Where do you live LLetsa? Who do you mix with? What young people do you interact with?


 


Rutita1 said:


> Which is possibly why you are getting it all so wrong. Had you the same experiences/knowledge as others here, you would probably care and understand a little more than you obviously do now.


 
I bow to your superior experience of trying to ingratiate yourself with and patronise 'young people.' As I said, however, I've just spent about half an hour arguing about something I don't particularly care about anyway. I long ago accepted that modern Britain is irreversibly twattish.


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> The point, as I keep having to repeat, is that it's far from being spoken only in inner-city estates.


No-one is suggesting that they do, though.


> I wish you'd all stop masturbating to this inner-city beat (man.)


urban inner-city London is what i _know_; it's where I've lived nearly all my adult life.
What other sort of experiences and knowledge am I gonna base my views and ideas on, the culture of the hebrides?


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> I bow to your superior experience of trying to ingratiate yourself with and patronise 'young people.' As I said, however, I've just spent about half an hour arguing about something I don't particularly care about anyway. I long ago accepted that modern Britain is irreversibly twattish.


so you concluded, if you can't beat 'em join 'em.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> like the rolling stones and the beatles you mean?
> 
> 
> 3:18 in
> ...




I mean in everyday speech, as you well know, Mr Pedant. And the Beatles sounded about as black as me. So did Jagger for that matter.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> so you concluded, if you can't beat 'em join 'em.



Like you did. Nobody is innocent.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> I mean in everyday speech, as you well know, Mr Pedant. And the Beatles sounded about as black as me. So did Jagger for that matter.


the bit about 'deliber de letter' passed you by then


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> I bow to your superior experience of trying to ingratiate yourself with and patronise 'young people.'



I don't need to ingratiate myself with young people, I have enough around me thank you. Still no response as to the ones you come into contact with I see.



> As I said, however, I've just spent about half an hour arguing about something I don't particularly care about anyway. I long ago accepted that *modern Britain is* *irreversibly twattish*.


What's that code for eh?  ...and you suggest I am patronising? Seriously...



> *The British*
> 
> * Take some Picts, Celts and Silures*
> *And let them settle,*
> ...


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 16, 2011)

> I mean in everyday speech, as you well know, Mr Pedant. And the Beatles sounded about as black as me. So did Jagger for that matter.


What do Black people sound like?


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 16, 2011)

...


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 16, 2011)

love the poem Rutita1, got a link?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 16, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> love the poem Rutita1, got a link?


http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-british/


----------



## roctrevezel (Aug 16, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> What do Black people sound like?


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 16, 2011)

you is blessed, fe real, Sistah!
<fist bumps>
e2a: @ rutita


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Lyrically, Bankrobber was one of the most cringeworthy things the Clash ever did. Apart from that it was quite good.
> 
> The difference is that R&B and punk didn't usually glorify murder and rape as does some of the 'Gangsta' shit.



When _Bankrobber_ was released it was criticised for "glorifying bank robbing" I remember some people at the time claiming that it would "encourage people to rob banks". I heard people say these things on television. There were even calls to ban it.

R&B was viewed as a socio-cultural contaminant by white cultural purists. Incidentally, the song _Boom Boom...Out Go the Lights _by Little Walter goes like this



> No kiddin'
> I'm ready to fight
> I've been lookin' for my baby all night
> If I get her in my sight
> ...


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 16, 2011)

the clash said:
			
		

> My Daddy was a bankrobber
> But he never hurt nobody
> He just loved to live that way
> And he loved to steal your money
> ...


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 16, 2011)

god |I loved the clash


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 16, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> god |I loved the clash


i think on capitol city, in the interview bit, they talk about joe strummer singing like one of those jamaican reggae types where you have to listen a thousand times to understand the lyrics.

and sometimes it still surprises me when i see the lyrics, like that bit in 'bankrobber'





> i can't find that hole in the wall
> i know that they never will


i thought it was 





> i still can't find that hole in the wall
> i know that they never built it


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 16, 2011)

Utter bollocks lletsa. You're just sounding like am old fool now. Rutita is absolutely right. It really is no more complicated than kids talking like their mates as has always happened


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 16, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Utter bollocks lletsa. You're just sounding like am old fool now. Rutita is absolutely right. It really is no more complicated than kids talking like their mates as has always happened


yeh. but we have known for a fucking long time that lletsa's a miserabilist tosspot wanker with all the charm of a week-old turd.


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 16, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> i think on capitol city, in the interview bit, they talk about joe strummer singing like one of those jamaican reggae types where you have to listen a thousand times to understand the lyrics.
> 
> and sometimes it still surprises me when i see the lyrics, like that bit in 'bankrobber'i thought it was


Interesting that - I always thought itwas the latter version too , tho' I grant that the late, great Joe's pronunciation was pretty indistinct for a public schoolboy!


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Aug 16, 2011)




----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 16, 2011)

Mr.Bishie said:


>



who's that on the other microphone? i want to say jimmy pursey but i'm not sure.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Aug 16, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> who's that on the other microphone? i want to say jimmy pursey but i'm not sure.



No idea


----------



## rollinder (Aug 16, 2011)

Pretty sure Rock Against Racism was the gig he joined them for that song.

(ot read something claiming that having him perform it + him having (some) stupid/bonehead followers didn't help make it explicit that White Riot wasn't racist.)


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> When _Bankrobber_ was released it was criticised for "glorifying bank robbing" I remember some people at the time claiming that it would "encourage people to rob banks". I heard people say these things on television. There were even calls to ban it.
> 
> R&B was viewed as a socio-cultural contaminant by white cultural purists. Incidentally, the song _Boom Boom...Out Go the Lights _by Little Walter goes like this


 
I know, but so what? As I said, it has nothing to do with the fact that no other form of music had so systematically glorified murder and the ill treatment of women and gays etc as gangsta rap.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Utter bollocks lletsa. You're just sounding like am old fool now. Rutita is absolutely right. It really is no more complicated than kids talking like their mates as has always happened


 
That's actually what I'm saying-it is not some vital cultural-linguistic development, but just kids ditching their real accents to talk in a ridiculous caricature of a Caribbean accent.

Read the posts before you jump in, eh?


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


>





Streathamite said:


> god |I loved the clash



So did I, but the lyrics of Bankrobber are naive. 'Imagine if all the boys in jail could get out now together.' Yes Joe, I doubt if we would have seen you for dust.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> That's actually what I'm saying-it is not some vital cultural-linguistic development, but just kids ditching their real accents to talk in a ridiculous caricature of a Caribbean accent.
> 
> Read the posts before you jump in, eh?


how do you think 'vital cultural-linguistic developments' come about? This particular one is just as vital as any other.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> yeh. but we have known for a fucking long time that lletsa's a miserabilist tosspot wanker with all the charm of a week-old turd.



I'm terribly hurt.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> how do you think 'vital cultural-linguistic developments' come about? This particular one is just as vital as any other.



Says another condescending 'down with the kids' middle class wannabe.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 16, 2011)

Why does language change, lletsa?

If you knew me, you would know that I am very far from 'down with the kids'. I do know something about how language works, though, as does Rutita.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> who's that on the other microphone? i want to say jimmy pursey but i'm not sure.



It's Jimmy Pursey.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> What do Black people sound like?



You can't tell the difference between all forms of black music and white rock?


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Why does language change, lletsa?



For lots of reasons. None of them take anything away, however, from the fact that what we're talking about is white kids mimicking a ridiculous caricature of a Caribbean accent.

As I said, nobody is guilty. In Manchester my generation introduced such vital innovations to the English language as 'angin' (meaning horrible, ugly etc.) But at least we said it in an accent that was our own.


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> So did I, but the lyrics of Bankrobber are naive. 'Imagine if all the boys in jail could get out now together.' Yes Joe, I doubt if we would have seen you for dust.


agreed, but punk hardly went in for for considered, complex political analysis!


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 16, 2011)

Sorry, lletsa, but you take exactly the same line as Starkey on this. And you are every bit as wrong.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> I know, but so what? As I said, it has nothing to do with the fact that no other form of music had so systematically glorified murder and the ill treatment of women and gays etc as gangsta rap.



That's your answer to everything..."so what"? You still don't get it do you? What do you think the lyrics to Boom Boom...Out Go the Lights mean? That he's going to turn off the lights at the end of the evening?

You've also wilfully ignored the most important point about all of this, namely the fact that R&B was seen by the white cultural establishment as a socio-cultural contaminant. I guess it never occurred to you to ask yourself why that is.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Sorry, lletsa, but you take exactly the same line as Starkey on this. And you are every bit as wrong.



No I don't and no I'm not. I just recognise idiocy when I encounter it and, unlike some of you lot, don't condescendingly pander to it just because it comes from 'da yoof.'


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 16, 2011)

how exactly does one 'pander' to another person's accent?

You do and you are. you may not realise it, but your posts reveal either unconscious or conscious racist attitudes of exactly the same kind that Starkey holds.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> That's your answer to everything..."so what"? You still don't get it do you? What do you think the lyrics to Boom Boom...Out Go the Lights mean? That he's going to turn off the lights at the end of the evening?
> 
> You've also wilfully ignored the most important point about all of this, namely the fact that music produced by black people has been seen by the white cultural establism as a socio-cultural contaminant.


 
Sigh. You should have noticed by now that I'm not denying that. But it still remains that no other form of popular music has glorified murder and the 'gangsta' lifestyle etc as much as gangsta rap.

Is that clear enough for you now or should I repeat it again?


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> That's actually what I'm saying-it is not some vital cultural-linguistic development, but just kids ditching their real accents to talk in a ridiculous caricature of a Caribbean accent.
> 
> Read the posts before you jump in, eh?



They're not "ditching their 'real accents". Those _are_ their "real" accents. Like it or not, it's a product of urbanisation.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Sigh. You should have noticed by now that I'm not denying that. But it still remains that no other form of popular music has glorified murder and the 'gangsta' lifestyle etc as much as gangsta rap.
> 
> Is that clear enough for you now or should I repeat it again?



Sour grapes, eh LLETSA?


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> how exactly does one 'pander' to another person's accent?
> 
> You do and you are. you may not realise it, but your posts reveal either unconscious or conscious racist attitudes of exactly the same kind that Starkey holds.


 
Yes-I'm clearly being racist towards the little white imbeciles who mimic the fake accents of little black imbeciles.

Imbecility has no race.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> Sour grapes, eh LLETSA?


 
About what?


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> That's actually what I'm saying-it is not some vital cultural-linguistic development, but just kids ditching their real accents to talk in a ridiculous caricature of a Caribbean accent.


in the inner cities of the big cities - but especially and above all London - we have a genuinely multi-cultural, multi-ethnic environment. Indigenous English white are if anything a minority in Tottenham. so how could the development of that patois - a phenomenon which is now decades old - by w/c youth (white AND black, and asian) be _anything_ other than a 'cultural-linguistic development'?
I think we may be at cross-purposes here; you focussing _solely_ on kids who adopt that patois without growing up in the social context of the environment where it developed, and me focussing mainly on the innercity w/c environment.
So - i'll say it again; there ARE large swathes of kids who do exactly as you say, but they are an irrelevance, albeit an irritating one.
The patois/dialect/whatsoever came as a natural reflection of the environment in which it developed (mainly, but not exclusively, London multi-racial w/c class society).
As dialects usually do.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 16, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Yes-I'm clearly being racist towards the little white imbeciles who mimic the fake accents of little black imbeciles.
> 
> Imbecility has no race.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 16, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> They're not "ditching their 'real accents". Those _are_ their "real" accents. Like it or not, it's a product of urbanisation.



No they're not. As I've already said, their real accents are the ones they spoke with before they adopted this daft made up one we're discussing.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


>



Face palm should really be reserved for fourth-rate fifty-odd year-old academics who try to identify with 'the kids.'


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> About what?


What's the point? I'd get more sense from a brick wall.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Face palm should really be reserved for fourth-rate fifty-odd year-old academics who try to identify with 'the kids.'


You're a fucking self-parody.


----------



## Refused as fuck (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> No they're not. As I've already said, their real accents are the ones they spoke with before they adopted this daft made up one we're discussing.


 surely their _real_ accents were the ones they were born with?


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> No they're not. As I've already said, their real accents are the ones they spoke with before they adopted this daft made up one we're discussing.


Moving the goalposts again? Not like you at all.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> in the inner cities of the big cities - but especially and above all London - we have a genuinely multi-cultural, multi-ethnic environment. Indigenous English white are if anything a minority in Tottenham. so how could the development of that patois - a phenomenon which is now decades old - by w/c youth (white AND black, and asian) be _anything_ other than a 'cultural-linguistic development'?
> I think we may be at cross-purposes here; you focussing _solely_ on kids who adopt that patois without growing up in the social context of the environment where it developed, and me focussing mainly on the innercity w/c environment.
> So - i'll say it again; there ARE large swathes of kids who do exactly as you say, but they are an irrelevance, albeit an irritating one.
> The patois/dialect/whatsoever came as a natural reflection of the environment in which it developed (mainly, but not exclusively, London multi-racial w/c class society).
> As dialects usually do.



Do you think London is the only place in the UK with 'a genuinely multi-cultural blah blah?

For what it's worth, I do not believe that the accent we're talking about is any less contrived in inner-city London than it is anywhere else.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> Moving the goalposts again? Not like you at all.



It's not moving the goalposts, you old twit, it's what I've said all along. You're the one moving 'em by constantly posting up irrelevancies, commonplaces and platitudes.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> It's not moving the goalposts, you old twit, it's what I've said all along. You're the one moving 'em by constantly posting up irrelevancies, commonplaces and platitudes.



Is it fuck. You just don't like the idea that you're wrong. Now be a good lad and find another thread.


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Do you think London is the only place in the UK with 'a genuinely multi-cultural blah blah?


No, but it is EIGHT TIMES BIGGER than any other city, it was effectively where post-WW2 multi-cultural and multi-ethnic society started, and is still its' most prominent and obvious example.
Like it or not, London is simply more significant - in practically every way, in fact - than anywhere else in the UK.



> For what it's worth, I do not believe that the accent we're talking about is any less contrived in inner-city London than it is anywhere else


Then not only are you very wrong, but just about everyone within a 5 mile radius of me would be utterly astounded at such an assertion. 'streetslang' dialect is simply by now something the kids pick up from their environment, and everyone around them, and is therefore - to w/c big city youth - a natural part of their linguistic armoury, how they communicate.
and whether you recognise that or not - that is the only truth inner London working class youth know, or recognise.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> What's the point? I'd get more sense from a brick wall.


 
You say 'sour grapes' with reference to nothing and then 'What's the point?' when this reference to nothing is pointed out. And you say I make no sense.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> Is it fuck. You just don't like the idea that you're wrong. Now be a good lad and find another thread.


 
I might now that King Idiot has come on.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> No, but it is EIGHT TIMES BIGGER than any other city, it was effectively where post-WW2 multi-cultural and multi-ethnic society started, and is still its' most prominent and obvious example.
> Like it or not, London is simply more significant - in practically every way, in fact - than anywhere else in the UK.
> 
> Then not only are you very wrong, but just about everyone within a 5 mile radius of me would be utterly astounded at such an assertion. 'streetslang' dialect is simply by now something the kids pick up from their environment, and everyone around them, and is therefore - to w/c big city youth - a natural part of their linguistic armoury, how they communicate.
> and whether you recognise that or not - that is the only truth inner London working class youth know, or recognise.


 
i think you'll find that Manchester is the real capital...

I don't doubt that a lot of people round your way would be 'astounded at such an assertion,' but then lots of people are astounded about lots of things.

When did you become the oracle regarding London working class youth?


----------



## rekil (Aug 17, 2011)

Venom said:
			
		

> I hear the star of the Necromancer
> My blood is black and my heart doth bleed
> I am infernal and my mind's in torment
> I'll raise the dead make the world unclean


Metal is way more evil than gangster rap tbh.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> You can't tell the difference between all forms of black music and white rock?



Erm no, not always especially since I am educated enough to know that many have the same root.

Now, how about you answer my question: What does a Black person sound like?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> When did you become the oracle regarding London working class youth?



Why are you attacking people for knowing more about London Working Class youth than you?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> That's actually what I'm saying-it is not some vital cultural-linguistic development, but just kids ditching their real accents to talk in a ridiculous caricature of a Caribbean accent.
> 
> Read the posts before you jump in, eh?



LLetsa, what do you think of the poem I posted?



> *The British*​
> * Take some Picts, Celts and Silures*​*And let them settle,*​*Then overrun them with Roman conquerors. *​
> *Remove the Romans after approximately 400 years*​*Add lots of Norman French to some*​*Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Vikings, then stir vigorously. *​
> *Mix some hot Chileans, cool Jamaicans, Dominicans,*​*Trinidadians and Bajans with some Ethiopians, Chinese,*​*Vietnamese and Sudanese. *​
> ...


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> You say 'sour grapes' with reference to nothing and then 'What's the point?' when this reference to nothing is pointed out. And you say I make no sense.



Do I need to draw you a picture?


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 17, 2011)

copliker said:


> Metal is way more evil than gangster rap tbh.


Yep. Funnily enough, I was going to mention death metal and Marilyn Manson (whom people called for to be banned).


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> I might now that King Idiot has come on.



You're the only idiot here, chum. The trouble is, you're far too thick to comprehend it.


----------



## phildwyer (Aug 17, 2011)

[uote="Jeff Robinson, post: 10380033"]The slur against Jamacian patois what particularly disgusting. In fact, it is a dialect that can be used beautifully as anybody familar with the poetry of Linton Kwesi Johnson or the lyrics of Damian Marley will know.[/quote]

Nınja rule dem etc...


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 17, 2011)

I wonder what dear LLETSA makes of those people who speak in so-called Mockney accents? What about all those British singers who sing like Yanks? What about all the Swedes who sing in English?

LLETSA doesn't understand much about popular music. Otherwise he'd know all these things. Instead he pretends and then gets the hump when his lack of knowledge is exposed.

I sometimes get the feeling he was born an old man. But then, even old men know when they're wrong and admit it.

Between the ages of 5 and 6, I went to school in Liverpool. But my accent marked me out. In that year I started speaking like Scouser. I returned to the States with a Scouse accent, which I suddenly had to drop. In essence, you pick up the accent of those around you. If you go to school with people who are Orcadians, the chances are is that you will speak like an Orcadian. it's that simple.


----------



## butchersapron (Aug 17, 2011)

phildwyer said:


> [uote="Jeff Robinson, post: 10380033"]The slur against Jamacian patois what particularly disgusting. In fact, it is a dialect that can be used beautifully as anybody familar with the poetry of Linton Kwesi Johnson or the lyrics of Damian Marley will know.



Nınja rule dem etc...

[/quote]
Is that blokes trial ever going to happen? Seems like its been going on for years.


----------



## killer b (Aug 17, 2011)

accused of taking his own songs too literally, eh...


----------



## phildwyer (Aug 17, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Is that blokes trial ever going to happen? Seems like its been going on for years.



Whıch trıal ıs that: rape, murder or assault?


----------



## Scaggs (Aug 17, 2011)

Mark steel's view on Starkey's performance.


> What has changed is that the embittered snarling that was once confined to pub corners and fuming blogs now stands a chance of becoming government policy. Irrational screaming has become legitimate, and it's in this context we should see David Starkey.
> The riots were caused, apparently, by black culture, and we can get round the fact some rioters were white by saying they'd turned black, and get round the fact most black people don't riot by saying they've turned white. You could use that logic to prove that being Welsh causes boats to capsize, or that everything alive is a penguin. Take away the title historian, and he's one more purveyor of loud incoherent gibberish.



http://www.independent.co.uk/opinio...el-flogging-is-too-good-for-them-2338607.html


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Aug 17, 2011)

> Multicultural London English (abbreviated MLE), colloquially called Jafaican, is a dialect (and/or sociolect) of English that emerged in the late 20th century. It is spoken mainly in inner London. According to research conducted at Queen Mary, University of London, Multicultural London English is gaining territory from Cockney.
> 
> It is said to contain many elements from the languages of the Caribbean (Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago), South Asia (Indian subcontinent), and West Africa,[1][2] as well as remnants of traditional Cockney.[2] Although the street name, "Jafaican", implies that it is "fake" Jamaican, researchers indicate that it is not the language of white kids trying to "play cool" but rather that "[it is] more likely that young people have been growing up in London exposed to a mixture of second-language English and local London English and that this new variety has emerged from that mix".[3]
> 
> MLE is used mainly by young, inner-city, working-class people.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multicultural_London_English


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Aug 17, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> in the inner cities of the big cities - but especially and above all London - we have a genuinely multi-cultural, multi-ethnic environment. Indigenous English white are if anything a minority in Tottenham. so how could the development of that patois - a phenomenon which is now decades old - by w/c youth (white AND black, and asian) be _anything_ other than a 'cultural-linguistic development'?



FWIW I went to a lecture on linguistics and grime earlier this year. It seems to be widely agreed amongst academics that 1996 was the year in which it was no longer possible to tell the ethnicity of someone speaking "London Jamaican Creole" (LJC) from a recording.

Prior to then it was. (I seem to remember this is covered quite well in Simon Jones' "Black Culture White Youth" which is from the eighties - actually a study of white working class people into reggae in Birmingham).

One of the significant things about grime _isn't_ the multiracial nature of the groups, and the mixed heritage of some of the artists. The significant thing is that it's very rare to see any mention of this, it's just taken for granted.

It's only natural that kids from elsewhere want to mimic the language to appear cool. There were enough people trying to be cockney when I was at school in Hertfordshire in the seventies and eighties.

EDIT: having read the post above maybe I mean MLE rather than LJC, not really my field.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 17, 2011)

That's the one Miss shelf, although I would like that definition to go further and include/explore other influences. I also think that it is more than 'Jafacian' now and that such a term just reinforces ideas like Starkey's.


----------



## butchersapron (Aug 17, 2011)

Interesting that Starkey's use of 'white chavs' has gone largely uncommented on.


----------



## London_Calling (Aug 17, 2011)

> According to research conducted at Queen Mary, University of London, Multicultural London English is gaining territory from Cockney


There is a view that, if you want a reasonable approx. of the old Cockney accent, you'll find it in the Essex new towns.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 17, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Interesting that Starkey's use of 'white chavs' has gone largely uncommented on.



I don't think it has Butch, although for sure the word 'chav' hasn't been used much in this thread. Starkey was obviously deriding White working class people  and accusing them of becoming Black.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Aug 17, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> That's the one Miss shelf, although I would like that definition to go further and include/explore other influences. I also think that it is more than 'Jafacian' now and that such a term just reinforces ideas like Starkey's.


I agree with that

I hear a  massive Bengali influence on peoples accents in East London


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Aug 17, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Interesting that Starkey's use of 'white chavs' has gone largely uncommented on.



It is also interesting that Owen Jones, author of the Chavs book, who was on Newsnight with Starkey doesn't mention it in his write up:
http://owenjones.org/2011/08/16/it-was-like-enoch-powell-meets-alan-partridge/


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> I've said it isn't Jamaican patois. It's something contrived.



It's a bog-standard cross cultural fuson, just like the English my great-grandmother and grandmother spoke - standard working class London dialect cross-fused with Yiddish and Anglo-Yiddish.

So yes, it's *partially* "contrived", insofar as it's a direct attempt by a "community" to have their own "language", but that merely makes it the same as every other community, not different.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 17, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> I don't deny that, but that STILL doesn't make it contrived, not for teenagers and the younger. It is, for better or worse, the sreet language that they heard from a very early age, and learnt from it naturally, as you do - just as I learnt naturally from the excellent standard of RP English I heard all around me (family and locality) from a very early age.
> Which is why that patois, dialect, what-you-will WOULD be contrived as fuck were i ever to adopt it, but not those kids.



Well, depends how you mean "contrived, mate. All dialects are partly contrived, because they're often reinforcements of identity, and some (rhyming slang for instance) are deliberately contrived as a foil to surveillance. I think that where LLETSA is going wrong is that he's assuming that the use of language is deliberate, rather than it being learned in the same way you "naturally" talk a certain way with your mates, and a different way with granny and great aunt Emmeline.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> For most of them it isn't a 'street language' at all. You get just as many middle class kiddies, whose main view of 'the street' is from behind the windows of mummy's four wheel drive during the school run, using it, which makes it all the more ridiculous.



Who's talking about middle-class twats except you? They're irrelevant.



> Even if what you're saying is true of some, it can only be a tiny minority, as most children naturally adopt the accent of their parents and other close relatives, followed by that of the majority in their neighbourhoods.



Clever chap. You appear to understand, which is what makes your next paragraph incredibly stupid.



> For the vast majority using this artificial dialect, they contrive to use it to fit in with their peer group, and maybe sound like some dickhead whose music they listen to.



Yes, you _nudnik_. Just like some British working class blokes used/affected _faux_-American accents in the '40s and '50s for the same reasons. Does the fact that it might be to some degree affected render it invalid? Of course it doesn't. No more than Anglo-Jewish kids half my age using Yiddish sland is invalid.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Aug 17, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> It's a bog-standard cross cultural fuson, just like the English my great-grandmother and grandmother spoke - standard working class London dialect cross-fused with Yiddish and Anglo-Yiddish.
> 
> So yes, it's *partially* "contrived", insofar as it's a direct attempt by a "community" to have their own "language", but that merely makes it the same as every other community, not different.


you can hear that accent still spoken by some older Jewish and non-Jewish people in the East End of London(occasionally)


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> No I'm not. Just proudly intolerant, especially of imbeciles.



Self-hater. eh?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 17, 2011)

Miss-Shelf said:


> you can hear that accent still spoken by some older Jewish and non-Jewish people in the East End of London(occasionally)



Yep. It's brilliant.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Aug 17, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Yep. It's brilliant.


the test is if they say 'bagel' like 'biegal'


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 17, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> Interesting that - I always thought itwas the latter version too , tho' I grant that the late, great Joe's pronunciation was pretty indistinct for a public schoolboy!



There's another bit of the interview Pickman's Model referred to, where Strummer talks about how a producer tried to get him to enunciate more clearly and, as he put it, he sounded like "Matt fucking Monro or something".


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 17, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> who's that on the other microphone? i want to say jimmy pursey but i'm not sure.



Yep, it's sir James of Hersham. Check out first seven seconds of footage, and there he is face-on to the camera in his red and white striped shirt.
Christ but he was a twat!


----------



## Plumdaff (Aug 17, 2011)

Miss-Shelf said:


> I agree with that
> 
> I hear a massive Bengali influence on peoples accents in East London



Doesn't or didn't MLE include some Bengali slang, at least in its E London version?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> No they're not. As I've already said, their real accents are the ones they spoke with before they adopted this daft made up one we're discussing.



Yes, because everybody always speaks with a single accent, don't they?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Do you think London is the only place in the UK with 'a genuinely multi-cultural blah blah?
> 
> For what it's worth, I do not believe that the accent we're talking about is any less contrived in inner-city London than it is anywhere else.



What you believe is irrelevant.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 17, 2011)

copliker said:


> Metal is way more evil than gangster rap tbh.



Most opera makes metal look like lullabyes.


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> i think you'll find that Manchester is the real capital...


World city with a handful of rivals for world No 1, vs provincial afterthought? dream on...



> I don't doubt that a lot of people round your way would be 'astounded at such an assertion,' but then lots of people are astounded about lots of things.


by something as utterly, chuckleheadedly daft as you've been arguing here, they certainly would. You're as far from reality, and the plain unvarnished truth, as I am from Bondi beach right now. I really don't think you'll ever 'get it', that what you see as contrivance, is what kids grow up hearing all the time - and using naturally.
I know you are pathologically incapable of admitting you've got it wrong, but you really have here,and you're making yourself look progressively sillier with each post. Your choice, I grant you, but I'm baffled as to why you're trying to continue this far beyond an online debating appomattox



> When did you become the oracle regarding London working class youth


The same time as you adopted your rather desperate self-image, as the only non-'twat' (to use your charming phrase) left in the country, only I'm more convincing.
honestly, you really are being a monumental idiot here. Since when was 'spending alot of time in the presence of', and 'listening to' and 'observing', the same as 'being the oracle of'? There are loads of people I know who know an awful lot about the culture and practices of the police. By your same tortured logic, they are all leading lights in the police fed or ACPO.
Utterly bizarre.


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 17, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Well, depends how you mean "contrived, mate. All dialects are partly contrived, because they're often reinforcements of identity, and some (rhyming slang for instance) are deliberately contrived as a foil to surveillance. I think that where LLETSA is going wrong is that he's assuming that the use of language is deliberate, rather than it being learned in the same way you "naturally" talk a certain way with your mates, and a different way with granny and great aunt Emmeline.


yes - that's _exactly_ bloody it! That's the point I've been trying to get to all along. nailed VP, you've got it. street slang is what kids use as a matter of course, depending on the company.


----------



## phildwyer (Aug 17, 2011)

Fozzie Bear said:


> "London Jamaican Creole" (LJC)



Of course there's also a quite different New York Jamaican Creole (NYJC?) as well, you hear it in West Indian neighborhoods in the Brooklyn and the Bronx.


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 17, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> There's another bit of the interview Pickman's Model referred to, where Strummer talks about how a producer tried to get him to enunciate more clearly and, as he put it, he sounded like "Matt fucking Monro or something".


love it. f-ing brilliant.
RIP Joe.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 17, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> yes - that's _exactly_ bloody it! That's the point I've been trying to get to all along. nailed VP, you've got it. street slang is what kids use as a matter of course, depending on the company.



Yep, it's all about negotiation.


----------



## phildwyer (Aug 17, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> World city with a handful of rivals for world No 1, vs provincial afterthought? dream on...
> 
> by something as utterly, chuckleheadedly daft as you've been arguing here, they certainly would. You're as far from reality, and the plain unvarnished truth, as I am from Bondi beach right now. I really don't think you'll ever 'get it', that what you see as contrivance, is what kids grow up hearing all the time - and using naturally.
> I know you are pathologically incapable of admitting you've got it wrong, but you really have here,and you're making yourself look progressively sillier with each post. Your choice, I grant you, but I'm baffled as to why you're trying to continue this far beyond an online debating appomattox
> ...



Thıs makes no sense whatseover does ıt?


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Sigh. You should have noticed by now that I'm not denying that. But it still remains that no other form of popular music has glorified murder and the 'gangsta' lifestyle etc as much as gangsta rap.
> 
> Is that clear enough for you now or should I repeat it again?


again - ragga, an entirely different musical subgenre, but equally guilty of those sins


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 17, 2011)

phildwyer said:


> Thıs makes no sense whatseover does ıt?


no-one asked you. goodbye.
e2a; try including the bits I quoted from, and people might not think you're a trolling twat, despite the weight of evidence to the contrary


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 17, 2011)

Fozzie Bear said:


> It is also interesting that Owen Jones, author of the Chavs book, who was on Newsnight with Starkey doesn't mention it in his write up:
> http://owenjones.org/2011/08/16/it-was-like-enoch-powell-meets-alan-partridge/



I think he got blindsided by Starkey and found it difficult to put his points across because of Starkey's bulldozer style of conversation. No one else could really get a word in.


----------



## Captain Hurrah (Aug 17, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> World city with a handful of rivals for world No 1, vs provincial afterthought? dream on...



I'm a provincial. The place isn't an 'afterthought' though.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> You can't tell the difference between all forms of black music and white rock?



Black music was one of rock's many parents. Duh.


----------



## phildwyer (Aug 17, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> street slang is what kids use as a matter of course, depending on the company.



Stıll not makıng any sense.


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Aug 17, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> I think he got blindsided by Starkey and found it difficult to put his points across because of Starkey's bulldozer style of conversation. No one else could really get a word in.



That's disappointing, but understandable in the heat of the moment I guess. But I was referring to the blog post he wrote about it in the cold light of the day after...


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 17, 2011)

Fozzie Bear said:


> It's only natural that kids from elsewhere want to mimic the language to appear cool. There were enough people trying to be cockney when I was at school in Hertfordshire in the seventies and eighties.


same here - st albans, 1972-1984 (primary and secondary). and where are you from in our fair, yet ineffably dull home county, fozzie?


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 17, 2011)

Fozzie Bear said:


> That's disappointing, but understandable in the heat of the moment I guess. But I was referring to the blog post he wrote about it in the cold light of the day after...



Ah, okay. Sure, he really should have mentioned it. After all, the word 'chav' is in the title of his book.


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 17, 2011)

Miss-Shelf said:


> you can hear that accent still spoken by some older Jewish and non-Jewish people in the East End of London(occasionally)


that may have been what I heard in a caff run by an old jewish guy in stepney t'other day


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Aug 17, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> same here - st albans, 1972-1984 9primary and secondary). and where are you from in our fair, yet ineffably dull home county, fozzie?



Hatfield, then St Albans - I'm a couple of years behind you though


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 17, 2011)

lagtbd said:


> Doesn't or didn't MLE include some Bengali slang, at least in its E London version?


yes, and south indian, punjabi, gujarati, pakistani....there's LOADS in there - inevitably with an overcrowded city of 8 million, and a large w/c youth part of that


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 17, 2011)

Fozzie Bear said:


> Hatfield, then St Albans - I'm a couple of years behind you though


blimey, if you went to Townsend you were prolly at skool with my foster-sisters


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 17, 2011)

Captain Hurrah said:


> I'm a provincial. The place isn't an 'afterthought' though.


Please don't be offended - I actually like Manchester, it's a great city. However if LLETSA really wants to get into a North V south willy-waving bout, I'll stick up for my manor every time.


----------



## Captain Hurrah (Aug 17, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> Please don't be offended - I actually like Manchester, it's a great city. However if LLETSA really wants to get into a North V south willy-waving bout, I'll stick up for my manor every time.


I'm even more provincial than Manchester.

I like that city, though, apart from some parts of the pretentious middle classed centre. Thinking about moving there next year with Ms Hurrah.


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Aug 17, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> blimey, if you went to Townsend you were prolly at skool with my foster-sisters



Alas no... (bit wary of derailing... catch up by PM sometime?)


----------



## phildwyer (Aug 17, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> that may have been what I heard in a caff run by an old jewish guy in stepney t'other day



Were the words 'nebbısh' and 'nudnık' cast ın your dırectıon by any chance?


----------



## _angel_ (Aug 17, 2011)

Can I just say...


Streathamite said:


> No, but it is EIGHT TIMES BIGGER than any other city, it was effectively where post-WW2 multi-cultural and multi-ethnic society started, and is still its' most prominent and obvious example.
> Like it or not, London is simply more significant - in practically every way, in fact - than anywhere else in the UK.



fuck london




			
				LLETSA said:
			
		

> i think you'll find that Manchester is the real capital...



fuck manchester


----------



## Captain Hurrah (Aug 17, 2011)

Fuck Keighley.


----------



## _angel_ (Aug 17, 2011)

Keighley's alright but the area around it is what's worth seeing.


----------



## Captain Hurrah (Aug 17, 2011)

I remember driving through Bradford in Herbert Read's social worker mobile: a battered Ford Ka .


----------



## _angel_ (Aug 17, 2011)

Captain Hurrah said:


> I remember driving through Bradford in Herbert Read's social worker mobile: a battered Ford Ka .


Been at Esholt today where they used to film Emmerdale. Beats Manchester and London by miles


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 17, 2011)

London thrills me


----------



## DotCommunist (Aug 17, 2011)

frottage on the tube again?


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 17, 2011)

No, the ointment cleared that up


----------



## rekil (Aug 17, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> Yep. Funnily enough, I was going to mention death metal and Marilyn Manson (whom people called for to be banned).


And poor old Rob Halford.


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 17, 2011)

_angel_ said:


> Can I just say...
> 
> fuck london
> 
> fuck manchester


don't be too offended, but I'm getting this mental image of you as one of the four yorkshirepersons in the Python sketch! 
lived in shoebox in middle o't'motorway.....


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 17, 2011)

Fozzie Bear said:


> Alas no... (bit wary of derailing... catch up by PM sometime?)


yep lets do that, o fellow santalbanian....


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 17, 2011)

***********************************


----------



## Jeff Robinson (Aug 17, 2011)

Captain Hurrah said:


> a battered Ford Ka .



Sounds like a Scottish snack.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 17, 2011)

copliker said:


> And poor old Rob Halford.



I remember that. That happened in the aftermath of the Tipper Gore PMRC label thing.


----------



## Poo Flakes (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Do you think London is the only place in the UK with 'a genuinely multi-cultural blah blah?
> 
> For what it's worth, I do not believe that the accent we're talking about is any less contrived in inner-city London than it is anywhere else.



LLETSA, your point is that young people have a contrived language and culture that is heavily influenced by a black sub-culture which, in the words of Starkey (and, by proxy, Powell) has sullied our shores? Why? Because _we know_.

Are you actually extending this to suggest that this glorifies rape and murder (presumably, then, increasing the rape and murder rate of Britain), and has had a heavy influence in the rioting (which Starkey has claimed)? If so, this could be tested quantitatively, and, at best, my guess is you would find only spurious correlation. A quick tutorial of applied statistics using publicly available crime figures and an assortment of the most intuitively appealing explanatory variables would explain why. Something neither O'Neill, Starkey, nor the plethora of social 'commentators' have bothered to do.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 17, 2011)

I found this interesting Guardian article from 2004.


> Asian 'yoof-speak' is spicing up English, with Hindi words such as 'gora' and slang such as 'innit' soon to enter the dictionary and experts predicting an explosive impact of the language used by second-generation immigrants. Welcome to the 'Queen's Hinglish'.
> Spoof television programmes such as The Kumars at No 42 and Goodness Gracious Me have had a massive influence on English, with dictionary compilers keeping an eye on the lingo used by star Meera Syal to monitor shifts.
> Syal, the actress who plays the grandmother in the Kumars, has already been credited with fast-tracking the word 'chuddies' (underpants) into everyday use. In the latest edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, there is already a host of Hindi words, including 'Angrez' (English person) and 'badmash' (naughty), while many more are being entered into the Collins Bank of English, which screens words for entry.
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2004/apr/25/britishidentity.anushkaasthana



I've heard a lot of white and black kids use these words. Innit.


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 17, 2011)

Captain Hurrah said:


> I'm even more provincial than Manchester.
> 
> I like that city, though, apart from some parts of the pretentious middle classed centre. Thinking about moving there next year with Ms Hurrah.


hope you enjoy living there, if you do 'take the plunge'


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 17, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> I found this interesting Guardian article from 2004.
> 
> I've heard a lot of white and black kids use these words. Innit.


Starkey, being the 'fine' historian he is, obviously hasn't read it.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 17, 2011)

phildwyer said:


> Were the words 'nebbısh' and 'nudnık' cast ın your dırectıon by any chance?



Ah, you're well-acquainted with them yourself, I see!.


----------



## gavman (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Whatever it is, it's still bollocks when people contrive to use it in place of their real accent. Especially when they're white, the little imbeciles.


have you ever heard a white jamaican speak?
is his accent contrived because he isn't black?


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 17, 2011)

gavman said:


> have you ever heard a white jamaican speak?
> is his accent contrived because he isn't black?


or a white bajan come to that, of which there are a sizeable number


----------



## gavman (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> No it isn't a class issue. Not when 'the kids on the estates' (who are not the only working class kids nor even the majority of working class kids-and, what's more, don't form a majority of those who speak with the accent in question) grow up speaking with the same accent as their parents and neighbourhood/region and then adopt this other accent when they fall under different influences.
> 
> You're talking as though most 'kids on the etstaes' bring themselves/each other up. Some might, most don't.


'bout time you started linking to the sources you have for all this information. otherwise people are going to suspect you are talking out of your arse


----------



## gavman (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> I bet you most kids who talk like that don't even have any black friends. Like I said, on the bus in the morning, blacks form about 2% of the kids I encounter for most of the journey. There are a lot more Asians, and guess what? They talk like that as well, and are rightly mocked for it by Asian comedians (and one Jewish comedian.)
> 
> I wish you'd all stop trying to be down with the kids. It's unbecoming of middle aged men. And women.
> 
> And nobody can escape my judgement.


who the fuck is it that you think you are?


----------



## gavman (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Even if it is, it's used in a lot of other places than inner-city London. Like I said, contrived.


unlike say, for example, rhyming slang. nothing contrived about that


----------



## gavman (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> That's actually what I'm saying-it is not some vital cultural-linguistic development, but just kids ditching their real accents to talk in a ridiculous caricature of a Caribbean accent.
> 
> Read the posts before you jump in, eh?


i seem to remember the word 'contrived' featured heavily in your characterisation


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> I wonder what dear LLETSA makes of those people who speak in so-called Mockney accents? What about all those British singers who sing like Yanks? What about all the Swedes who sing in English?
> 
> LLETSA doesn't understand much about popular music. Otherwise he'd know all these things. Instead he pretends and then gets the hump when his lack of knowledge is exposed.
> 
> ...


 
We're not talking about singers, as has been already mentioned, you pompous fool. And the point is that while it's natural to speak with a local dialect, the one under discussion here is completely contrived.

And that's all there is to it.


----------



## gavman (Aug 17, 2011)

bbc's response to my complaint:
Dear mr gavman 
Thank you for contacting us regarding ‘Newsnight’, broadcast on Friday 12 August.

We understand some viewers felt David Starkey's contribution to the discussion on the England riots was inappropriate and racially offensive. We note some viewers also felt Dr Starkey's views were not sufficiently challenged by presenter Emily Maitlis.

Firstly, it is important to stress that Dr Starkey’s views are his alone and not those of ‘Newsnight’ or the BBC. It is part of ‘Newsnight's remit to air and challenge controversial views and we believe his perspective on the riots was robustly challenged during the course of this discussion.

The aim of this, at times heated, ten minute debate was to examine the causes of the recent riots and looting and in many ways it encapsulated different strands of opinion, both ideologically and socio-economically, as to what provoked the violence. Presenter Emily Maitlis directly challenged David Starkey’s views on a number of occasions, asking: ‘Is black culture the cause of the rioting?’ and ultimately ending the discussion by asserting that Dr Starkey was ‘using black and white cultures interchangeably as good and bad’.

Aside from Emily Maitlis’ interjections, guests Owen Jones and Dreda Say Mitchell clearly took exception to David Starkey’s opinions and were given ample time and space to make their disagreements heard. Owen Jones particularly highlighted that many people listening would find the views expressed offensive, and Emily Maitlis provided further context - making it clear that David Cameron had stated that this was not a race issue, and that people taking part in the riots came from a range of ethnic backgrounds.

Although some viewers found David Starkey’s arguments offensive, others agreed with them. It is not ‘Newsnight's’ job to censor the views of our guests; the programme would rather challenge them in a robust way on air, and allow viewers to draw their own conclusions. We believe this discussion was conducted in a fair and professional manner.

Please be assured your concerns were raised with the programme. 

Thank you again for taking the time to contact us. 

www.bbc.co.uk/complaints

NB This is sent from an outgoing account only which is not monitored. You cannot reply to this email address but if necessary please contact us via our webform quoting any case number we provided. 
Kind Regards
BBC Audience Services


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

gavman said:


> i seem to remember the word 'contrived' featured heavily in your characterisation



That's because, as I say above, the accent in question is contrived.


----------



## DotCommunist (Aug 17, 2011)

made a tit of meself. Carry on regardless.


----------



## Jeff Robinson (Aug 17, 2011)

Man dem like David Starkey be fassios, cussing ma breddrins and shit. Dem bwoy dem dun kno bout ghetto yoot and shit foo real. Booyaka booyaka.


----------



## Jeff Robinson (Aug 17, 2011)

Sorry about the above, I appear to have got blackified. Can happen from time to time if you're not vigilant.


----------



## Crispy (Aug 17, 2011)

Jeff Robinson said:


> blackified


?!?!?!


----------



## Jeff Robinson (Aug 17, 2011)

Crispy said:


> ?!?!?!



Blackified /verb/ - the cultural transformation of caucasian youth into blacks. The reason for rioting. Concept first coined by D Starkey.


----------



## elbows (Aug 17, 2011)

The trial of number 48 from the final episode of the prisoner seems strangely relevant here, and to the riot response in general.


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 17, 2011)

Jeff Robinson said:


> Blackified /verb/ - the cultural transformation of caucasian youth into blacks. The reason for rioting. Concept first coined by D Starkey.


He only - according to a post I saw somewhere today - said what everyone was thinking.


----------



## Poo Flakes (Aug 17, 2011)

gavman said:


> bbc's response to my complaint



You should complain to Ofcom that the BBC breached the broadcasting code -

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/broadcasting/broadcast-codes/broadcast-code/harmoffence/

I think, given Dr Starkey's past record of controversy (Wales and Scotland), the BBC breached 2.3, they should have known that Dr Starkey was likely to cause offense at such a time.  His appearance on Newsnight could not have been justified at this time.


----------



## Jeff Robinson (Aug 17, 2011)

@ Danny - He's the voice of the silent majority.


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 17, 2011)

Jeff Robinson said:


> @ Danny - He's the voice of the silent majority.


Thank fuck they're silent.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 17, 2011)

.


----------



## Poo Flakes (Aug 17, 2011)

Jeff Robinson said:


> @ Danny - He's the voice of the silent majority.



When you mean 'silent majority' do you really mean the xenophobic, cognitive dissonant middle England swing voters whose narrowminded, insignificant, peripheral cryptofascist bunting set the terms for the wankfest of third-rate hacks and depressingly impotent politicians that passes for public debate, whose ill-thought through bullshit leads to monumental social, economic, and political catastrofucks which are consequently blamed intermittantly on socialism and multiculturalism, and whose innane, hysterial reactionary bullshit fills the pages of all the mainstream newspapers, after which we are told solemnly that their views are never discussed?


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 17, 2011)

He's getting good ratings from the kind of people who are in TellYouGov:  http://www.tellyougov.com/topics/3797


----------



## Blagsta (Aug 17, 2011)

I got banned from TellYouGov


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 17, 2011)

What did you say?


----------



## newharper (Aug 17, 2011)

Poo Flakes said:


> When you mean 'silent majority' do you really mean the xenophobic, cognitive dissonant middle England swing voters whose narrowminded, insignificant, peripheral cryptofascist bunting set the terms for the wankfest of third-rate hacks and depressingly impotent politicians that passes for public debate, whose ill-thought through bullshit leads to monumental social, economic, and political catastrofucks which are consequently blamed intermittantly on socialism and multiculturalism, and whose innane, hysterial reactionary bullshit fills the pages of all the mainstream newspapers, after which we are told solemnly that their views are never discussed?



Sadly not insignificant.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 17, 2011)

Poo Flakes said:


> When you mean 'silent majority' do you really mean the xenophobic, cognitive dissonant middle England swing voters whose narrowminded, insignificant, peripheral cryptofascist bunting set the terms for the wankfest of third-rate hacks and depressingly impotent politicians that passes for public debate, whose ill-thought through bullshit leads to monumental social, economic, and political catastrofucks which are consequently blamed intermittantly on socialism and multiculturalism, and whose innane, hysterial reactionary bullshit fills the pages of all the mainstream newspapers, after which we are told solemnly that their views are never discussed?



I don't think that there's that many of them tho tbf, and i don't think that their views are what's driving public policy - if anything i think it's the opposite tbh!


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> It's a bog-standard cross cultural fuson, just like the English my great-grandmother and grandmother spoke - standard working class London dialect cross-fused with Yiddish and Anglo-Yiddish.
> 
> So yes, it's *partially* "contrived", insofar as it's a direct attempt by a "community" to have their own "language", but that merely makes it the same as every other community, not different.


 
There is no discernible community using it; that's the point.

The word community is used inappropriately these days anyway, especially when what people mean isn't anything remotely like a community.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Well, depends how you mean "contrived, mate. All dialects are partly contrived, because they're often reinforcements of identity, and some (rhyming slang for instance) are deliberately contrived as a foil to surveillance. I think that where LLETSA is going wrong is that he's assuming that the use of language is deliberate, rather than it being learned in the same way you "naturally" talk a certain way with your mates, and a different way with granny and great aunt Emmeline.


 
Why do people keep saying the accent in question comes naturally? It doesn't; kids choose to adopt it after originally speaking with the accent that really did come naturally to them before peer pressure and so on intervened.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Yes, because everybody always speaks with a single accent, don't they?


 
Most people do.


nino_savatte said:


> Black music was one of rock's many parents. Duh.


 
Gosh really?


----------



## Refused as fuck (Aug 17, 2011)

"and so on"


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> World city with a handful of rivals for world No 1, vs provincial afterthought? dream on...
> 
> by something as utterly, chuckleheadedly daft as you've been arguing here, they certainly would. You're as far from reality, and the plain unvarnished truth, as I am from Bondi beach right now. I really don't think you'll ever 'get it', that what you see as contrivance, is what kids grow up hearing all the time - and using naturally.
> I know you are pathologically incapable of admitting you've got it wrong, but you really have here,and you're making yourself look progressively sillier with each post. Your choice, I grant you, but I'm baffled as to why you're trying to continue this far beyond an online debating appomattox
> ...


 
More blah blah from the public school authority on inner-city living.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> Please don't be offended - I actually like Manchester, it's a great city. However if LLETSA really wants to get into a North V south willy-waving bout, I'll stick up for my manor every time.


 
'My manor.' Snigger.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

Poo Flakes said:


> LLETSA, your point is that young people have a contrived language and culture that is heavily influenced by a black sub-culture which, in the words of Starkey (and, by proxy, Powell) has sullied our shores? Why? Because _we know_.
> 
> Are you actually extending this to suggest that this glorifies rape and murder (presumably, then, increasing the rape and murder rate of Britain), and has had a heavy influence in the rioting (which Starkey has claimed)? If so, this could be tested quantitatively, and, at best, my guess is you would find only spurious correlation. A quick tutorial of applied statistics using publicly available crime figures and an assortment of the most intuitively appealing explanatory variables would explain why. Something neither O'Neill, Starkey, nor the plethora of social 'commentators' have bothered to do.


 
All I've said is that the accent is question is a contrived one that kids choose to adopt. Oh, and gansta rap often glorifies murder and all that. Which it does. Nothing else.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

gavman said:


> have you ever heard a white jamaican speak?
> is his accent contrived because he isn't black?


 
Oh piss off.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Aug 17, 2011)

Don't forget the video nasties, too.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

gavman said:


> 'bout time you started linking to the sources you have for all this information. otherwise people are going to suspect you are talking out of your arse


 
You don't need a source when you consider that kids up and down the country, black and white, working class and middle class adopt this accent in place of their old one and then mostly outgrow it. So it's nationwide, spoken only by people of a certain age (unless you're some old white druggie saddo,) and has only been around for, at most, a couple of decades. How can that be a genuine accent?


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> More blah blah from the public school authority on inner-city living.


More pathetic sneering from the loser who's talked utter, total bollocks on this thread, clearly can't handle a whole raft of posters demolishing his piss-poor argument, and so results to his usual, pitiful default position, rather than attempting anything approaching a decent line of argument, let alone one acquainted with 'reason' or 'facts'.
See - two can do this, LLETSA.
don't get me wrong, I _really_ don't care if you want to make this much of a prize dick of yourself.
I just feel obliged to point out where - as per usual - you are talking utter, total ignorant shite.


----------



## MellySingsDoom (Aug 17, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Don't forget the video nasties, too.



Yep, remember all that - it was the best of times, it was the worst of times - I remember Jimmy Ferman (BBFC head honcho at the time) banging on about how the likes of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" would corrupt Birmingham factory workers and suchlike, but that "educated" people (sigh) were apparently immune from such beastly stuff.  Not being classist thre, eh Ferman?  (And God rot Mary Whitehouse, Graham Bright MP and, well, just about every hypocritical moralising fuckwit who threw their oar in on that one).


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

gavman said:


> who the fuck is it that you think you are?


 
Don't know, but I do know what some of you lot are.

You're fucking hilarious, you sad bastards.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> There is no discernible community using it; that's the point.



Well, not discernible within your narrow parameters, anyway. After all, you've already said that groups of kids don't count.

Then again, you're a twat.



> The word community is used inappropriately these days anyway, especially when what people mean isn't anything remotely like a community.


 
"Inappropriately used"?
What you mean is that the definitions others use doesn't accord to your definition, and therefore when they talk about community they're not talking about something you consider to be legitimate.

Fortunately for people around the world, your prejudices and preferences mean fuck all.

Is a community only a geographically-located self-contained societal microcosm linked through a sense of belonging (the favourite definition of politicians)?
Nope. We know that there have been communities of association for as long as there have been geographical communities. Formal and informal.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> More pathetic sneering from the loser who's talked utter, total bollocks on this thread, clearly can't handle a whole raft of posters demolishing his piss-poor argument, and so results to his usual, pitiful default position, rather than attempting anything approaching a decent line of argument, let alone one acquainted with 'reason' or 'facts'.
> See - two can do this, LLETSA.
> don't get me wrong, I _really_ don't care if you want to make this much of a prize dick of yourself.
> I just feel obliged to point out where - as per usual - you are talking utter, total ignorant shite.


 
More blah blah from the public schoolboy drughead who thinks he's some sort of authority on 'the kids on the inner-London estates.'


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> All I've said is that the accent is question is a contrived one that kids choose to adopt.


Yes, cos all kids are *exactly* the same, regardless of ancestry, location, age, education and social class.....jesus, this really is the _Sun_ reader school of soci0-cultural analysis.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Don't know, but I do know what some of you lot are.
> 
> You're fucking hilarious, you sad bastards.



Wow, such maturity!


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Aug 17, 2011)

MellySingsDoom said:


> Yep, remember all that - it was the best of times, it was the worst of times - I remember Jimmy Ferman (BBFC head honcho at the time) banging on about how the likes of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" would corrupt Birmingham factory workers and suchlike, but that "educated" people (sigh) were apparently immune from such beastly stuff.  Not being classist thre, eh Ferman?  (And God rot Mary Whitehouse, Graham Bright MP and, well, just about every hypocritical moralising fuckwit who threw their oar in on that one).


Thing is, I thought we'd done the 80s revival now, and we were on to the 90s. Apparently not. Oh well. Look at them kids with their digital watches eh?


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Why do people keep saying the accent in question comes naturally? .


yes it does, and practically every single linguistics scientist out there would confirm it


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> "Inappropriately used"?
> What you mean is that the definitions others use doesn't accord to your definition, and therefore when they talk about community they're not talking about something you consider to be legitimate.


 
No (sigh) what I mean is that community is used to describe things thatcan't remotely be considered communities.

This is contemporary Britain all over: even the leftie (cough) intellectuals can't see the self-serving, liberal middle class crap they're wading in.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> yes it does, and practically every single linguistics scientist out there would confirm it


 
Bet they wouldn't.


----------



## MellySingsDoom (Aug 17, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Thing is, I thought we'd done the 80s revival now, and we were on to the 90s. Apparently not. Oh well. Look at them kids with their digital watches eh?



True - you could also say that, what with the racist bile and so on that's followed recent events, it's also a re-run of the seventies (Lewisham '77, Southall '79, Notting Hill '76 and anything else I've forgotten).  Joe Pearce will be flying back into the UK next to flog ancient issues of "Bulldog"  - ye gods.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Why do people keep saying the accent in question comes naturally? It doesn't; kids choose to adopt it after originally speaking with the accent that really did come naturally to them before peer pressure and so on intervened.



Do they? Do I speak differently to my parents because I chose to, or because I spent as much or perhaps more time at school and play interacting with my mates, and we all naturally reached a "consensus version" of our common language? Are you contending that your parents, in isolation, are responsible for your assimilation and reproduction of language?

If you're really that sure you're right and everyone else is wrong, talk to any linguist. They'll tell you that the word "natural" has no place in accent or dialect, because accent especially is so fluid that it can change drastically within a generation, *without* needing "peer pressure and so on", just through "passive" influences.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 17, 2011)

danny la rouge said:


> He only - according to a post I saw somewhere today - said what everyone was thinking.



Nah, that'd mean that "everyone" was a bigot.


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 17, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Nah, that'd mean that "everyone" was a bigot.


Doesn't everyone think that putting on an accent makes-a you wanna to burna stuff?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 17, 2011)

This is a very very silly argument. Peer influence is the single biggest factor in how people speak! Talking is about communication, after all.

One of the things that makes Starkey's outburst so unforgivable is that he, as an academic, has set himself against a whole academic discipline. As an academic, I would think that the first thing he would do before talking about linguistics would be to talk to a linguist. He's exposed himself as thoroughly intellectually dishonest, amongst other things.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Do they? Do I speak differently to my parents because I chose to, or because I spent as much or perhaps more time at school and play interacting with my mates, and we all naturally reached a "consensus version" of our common language? Are you contending that your parents, in isolation, are responsible for your assimilation and reproduction of language?
> 
> If you're really that sure you're right and everyone else is wrong, talk to any linguist. They'll tell you that the word "natural" has no place in accent or dialect, because accent especially is so fluid that it can change drastically within a generation, *without* needing "peer pressure and so on", just through "passive" influences.


 
You know what I'm saying as well as I do, it's just that you try to be down with the kids. Still, you might as well have a go while you're still justabout on the right side of fifty.

It's like this: yes, people often do speak a different variant of their parents' dialect, but it's usually a recognisable variant of the same dialect. Or if they move away they might pretty much lose the dialect altogether (most don't without some effort.). But if they get to a certain age and adopt a way of talking that is nationwide among a certain age group, black and white, middle class and working class etc, and then discard it later on when it starts sounding too ridiculous and/or disadvantageous, then it isn't a dialect but simply a contrived way of speaking.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Most people do.



So nobody you know has a "telephone voice", or lapses into their most "local" accent when talking with people they grew up with?


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Wow, such maturity!


 
As usual, it isn't me who started on the insults. And it's always the same gaggle of ageing lefties, with some wet behind the ears types tagging along trying to impress the former.


----------



## elbows (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> You don't need a source when you consider that kids up and down the country, black and white, working class and middle class adopt this accent in place of their old one and then mostly outgrow it. So it's nationwide, spoken only by people of a certain age (unless you're some old white druggie saddo,) and has only been around for, at most, a couple of decades. How can that be a genuine accent?



We are not just talking accent here but language. And language is a wonderful, fluid thing. It means quite a lot to people, including on a fairly playful level as well as more serious aspects.

Uptight, ignorant, stiflingly narrow definitions on these matters, and very silly judgements about what is 'genuine', are a bad joke.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> So nobody you know has a "telephone voice", or lapses into their most "local" accent when talking with people they grew up with?


 
Yes, some. But it isn't the same thing as what we're talking about.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

elbows said:


> We are not just talking accent here but language. And language is a wonderful, fluid thing. It means quite a lot to people, including on a fairly playful level as well as more serious aspects.
> 
> Uptight, ignorant, stiflingly narrow definitions on these matters, and very silly judgements about what is 'genuine', are a bad joke.


 
I'm not saying anybody shouldn't do anything.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> No (sigh) what I mean is that community is used to describe things thatcan't remotely be considered communities.
> 
> This is contemporary Britain all over: even the leftie (cough) intellectuals can't see the self-serving, liberal middle class crap they're wading in.



So give me some examples of "things that can't remotely be described as communities" instead of sighing and making farting noises about "liberal middle-class crap.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> I'm not saying anybody shouldn't do anything.


You _are_ passing a moral judgement on the way certain people speak, though.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> This is a very very silly argument. Peer influence is the single biggest factor in how people speak! Talking is about communication, after all.


 
It might be, but until recently it didn't involve speaking in a contrived accent that sounds the same no matter what part of the country you're in or who's speaking it.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 17, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> So give me some examples of "things that can't remotely be described as communities" instead of sighing and making farting noises about "liberal middle-class crap.


you want examples?

from lletsa?


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> You _are_ passing a moral judgement on the way certain people speak, though.


 
What's moral about what I'm saying?

And even if it was, I am free, as is anybody else, to pass moral judgement on who the fuck I please.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Yes, some. But it isn't the same thing as what we're talking about.



Actually, it is. It's *exactly* what we're talking about - the way that your accent naturally varies according to the person/people you're communicating with in order to facilitate the most efficent possible communication. We don't contrive those accents, they're all part of our generally multi-faceted personal identities and how we relate to people.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 17, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Actually, it is. It's *exactly* what we're talking about - the way that your accent naturally varies according to the person/people you're communicating with in order to facilitate the most efficent possible communication. We don't contrive those accents, they're all part of our generally multi-faceted personal identities and how we relate to people.


or rather to work towards the outcome you desire.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 17, 2011)

danny la rouge said:


> Doesn't everyone think that putting on an accent makes-a you wanna to burna stuff?



Vy vould it do that, schveinhunt?


----------



## elbows (Aug 17, 2011)

The Stanley Unwin award for most flipwitted lobeparpery will be judged at least in partles on some of the thumperous neurophuts that aligned themselves so ingloriously on this threadle.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 17, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> or rather to work towards the outcome you desire.


Yes, but that doesn't mean that we do it in a deliberate manner, i.e. consciously contrive the accent to fit in. Generally we learn it as part of our overall socialisation, and deploy it without conscious thought.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Yes, some. But it isn't the same thing as what we're talking about.


You are from Manchester but live in London, no? I can pretty much guarantee that your accent will change when you go back to Manchester. Everyone modifies their accent according to circumstances - according to who they are speaking to. And vocab too. I presume you don't tell Londoners to stop mithering you?

Accents can change radically in just a few years. Just look at the way that the London accent has spread to the whole of southeast England in the last thirty years or so. How do you think that happened? The accent in the town I'm from has changed in the 20-odd years since I left. It has shifted from a bit of a mix of Welsh and Forest of Dean to become much more markedly Welsh. And while that's due in part to newcomers from the Newport/Cardiff area, the accents of the people already there have changed in that time. No doubt without them even noticing it happening - it takes someone like me moving away and then coming back to notice the change.

The process of changing accents you identify is _no different_. And yes, in part, your accent will reflect the fact that you identify with a particular culture.


----------



## MellySingsDoom (Aug 17, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Vy vould it do that, schveinhunt?



Is that your Klaus Kinski voice?

(If so, I like it)


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> It might be, but until recently it didn't involve speaking in a contrived accent that sounds the same no matter what part of the country you're in or who's speaking it.


You must have a tin ear if you think it all sounds the same. The same words might be used, but believe me, a Norfolk bedroom gangsta sounds bollock-all like a bedroom gangsta from south-east Kent or north Devon or Birkenhead.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> So give me some examples of "things that can't remotely be described as communities" instead of sighing and making farting noises about "liberal middle-class crap.


 
Again, you know as well as I do that loads of things are described as communities when really they're nothing of the kind. 'The gay community'; 'the black community'; 'the Asian community'; 'the white community': they're nothing of the fucking kind. In what way are they communities when most members of each are complete strangers to each other (as if they could be anything else being nationwide.) You even get people who happen by chance to share the same hobbies and interests being described as communities. Again, most of them never meet and most of them never will. What kind of a community is that?


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 17, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Yes, but that doesn't mean that we do it in a deliberate manner, i.e. consciously contrive the accent to fit in. Generally we learn it as part of our overall socialisation, and deploy it without conscious thought.


quite so.


----------



## Refused as fuck (Aug 17, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Actually, it is. It's *exactly* what we're talking about - the way that your accent naturally varies according to the person/people you're communicating with in order to facilitate the most efficent possible communication. We don't contrive those accents, they're all part of our generally multi-faceted personal identities and how we relate to people.



What the fuck are you doing? Science, reason and logic are not welcome in this discussion.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> You must have a tin ear if you think it all sounds the same. The same words might be used, but believe me, a Norfolk bedroom gangsta sounds bollock-all like a bedroom gangsta from south-east Kent or north Devon or Birkenhead.


 
Again, that's the point. If the local accent comes peeping through, it only shows how contrived the adopted one is. The idea, however, is that they should all sound the same.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Again, you know as well as I do that loads of things are described as communities when really they're nothing of the kind. 'The gay community'; 'the black community'; 'the Asian community'; 'the white community': they're nothing of the fucking kind. In what way are they communities when most members of each are complete strangers to each other (as if they could be anything else being nationwide.) You even get people who happen by chance to share the same hobbies and interests being described as communities. Again, most of them never meet and most of them never will. What kind of a community is that?


what about penpals. a lot of them never meet. but they seem to communicate alright. or here, despite people's divergent interests, people manage to communicate here though most people will never meet. in fact your post seems rather daft when emphasising meeting on an online community where many, if not most, posting members will never meet.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 17, 2011)

MellySingsDoom said:


> Is that your Klaus Kinski voice?
> 
> (If so, I like it)



It's the accent of his brother Withold. I stole it from him during a drunken brawl.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

Refused as fuck said:


> What the fuck are you doing? Science, reason and logic are not welcome in this discussion.


 
No science and precious little reason or logic in this discussion.

Where do you get the idea that reason and logic have anything to do with argument?


----------



## Refused as fuck (Aug 17, 2011)

I thought this was an discussion about accents?


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 17, 2011)

it was


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

Refused as fuck said:


> I thought this was an discussion about accents?


 
Stop changing the subject then.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> it was


 
Until the usual bunch of mediocrities started writing about their favourite subject: me.


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 17, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Vy vould it do that, schveinhunt?


I donta knowa.  I'll-a have the insalata caprese then the combustione e saccheggi.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Again, that's the point. If the local accent comes peeping through, it only shows how contrived the adopted one is. The idea, however, is that they should all sound the same.



No, the local accent "peeps through" because what you call the "adopted" accent that is supposedly learned from gangsta rap is actually from much the same sources as any "original" accent: The social and geographical locality. Why would they then sound the same. The only reason that would be the case would be if the "gangsta rap" was the primary shared source for the accent. That obviously *NOT* being the case, there appears to be a hole below your waterline.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> what about penpals. a lot of them never meet. but they seem to communicate alright. or here, despite people's divergent interests, people manage to communicate here though most people will never meet. in fact your post seems rather daft when emphasising meeting on an online community where many, if not most, posting members will never meet.


 
What, everybody with a penpal is part of a community of penpals?

Online communities aren't communities in any meaningful sense.


----------



## elbows (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Again, that's the point. If the local accent comes peeping through, it only shows how contrived the adopted one is. The idea, however, is that they should all sound the same.



If you want to use the term contrived in that way, then I see no reason why the term could not also be applied to much of human culture & communication in general.

We have flexible brains, we adapt to change and our environments and to others. I don't see what meaning the term contrived really has in this context.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> What, everybody with a penpal is part of a community of penpals?
> 
> Online communities aren't communities in any meaningful sense.


go on then, define community


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> No, the local accent "peeps through" because what you call the "adopted" accent that is supposedly learned from gangsta rap is actually from much the same sources as any "original" accent: The social and geographical locality. Why would they then sound the same. The only reason that would be the case would be if the "gangsta rap" was the primary shared source for the accent. That obviously *NOT* being the case, there appears to be a hole below your waterline.


 
Who said it was learned from gangsta rap? Not me. It might have an influence, but I don't think gangsta rappers sound like the accent we're talking about. There were two strands of argument going on in the thread earlier: this rather silly accent and the destructive influence of gangsta rap. Try not to get confused.

You're really trying to deny that up and down the country those kids who temporarily adopt this accent aren't all trying to sound alike?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> What's moral about what I'm saying?
> 
> And even if it was, I am free, as is anybody else, to pass moral judgement on who the fuck I please.


Silly boy. "I'm entitled to my opinion!"


----------



## MellySingsDoom (Aug 17, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> It's the accent of his brother Withold. I stole it from him during a drunken brawl.



Them Kinskis, eh?  Always with the fighting and shouting.  The drunken bit's alright though.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

elbows said:


> If you want to use the term contrived in that way, then I see no reason why the term could not also be applied to much of human culture & communication in general.
> 
> We have flexible brains, we adapt to change and our environments and to others. I don't see what meaning the term contrived really has in this context.


 
There's really no need to try and intellectualise any of this. It's simple, and I'm sick of having to repeat the obvious: most kids speaking with this accent didn't grow up speaking with it. At a certain age they decided to adopt it due to peer pressure, fashion etc. Many, if not most of them, probably ditch it when they realise that it sounds a bit silly when you're trying to pull a member of the opposite sex who can see just how silly and might laugh. Or when they get a job as a milkman and the old biddies can't understand them when they call for their money. Or whatever.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Silly boy. "I'm entitled to my opinion!"


 
To paraphrase Bernard Manning, nobody is compelled to fucking like anybody.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Again, you know as well as I do that loads of things are described as communities when really they're nothing of the kind. 'The gay community'; 'the black community'; 'the Asian community'; 'the white community': they're nothing of the fucking kind. In what way are they communities when most members of each are complete strangers to each other (as if they could be anything else being nationwide.) You even get people who happen by chance to share the same hobbies and interests being described as communities. Again, most of them never meet and most of them never will. What kind of a community is that?


They're called "communities of shared interest", an idea that's been around for, oh, at least 400 years, but was probably first illustrated in the mid-Victorian era by Toennies and Weber, and in the 1970s by Benedict Anderson. Communities not just as multi-tiered and hierarchically-governed geographical communities, but also as loosely-linked "associations" of people who share things as diverse as ethnicity or a fondness for trad jazz.

Still, I know how little appeal high-flown ideas have for you, so I probably shouldn't mention them.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> go on then, define community


 
You know what a community is.

Do you think anybody with a penpal is part of a community of penpals then, or what?


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> You know what a community is.
> 
> Do you think anybody with a penpal is part of a community of penpals then, or what?


i know i know what a community is. do you know what a community is though?

you don't seem to when you run away from answering the question.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> There's really no need to try and intellectualise any of this.


lucky for you


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 17, 2011)

danny la rouge said:


> I donta knowa. I'll-a have the insalata caprese then the combustione e saccheggi.



Ach, your greasy Italian food nauseates me! Bring me the wurst and I'll do my best to eat it!


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Who said it was learned from gangsta rap? Not me. It might have an influence, but I don't think gangsta rappers sound like the accent we're talking about. There were two strands of argument going on in the thread earlier: this rather silly accent and the destructive influence of gangsta rap. Try not to get confused.
> 
> You're really trying to deny that up and down the country those kids who temporarily adopt this accent aren't all trying to sound alike?



You've just shifted the goalposts from "they all sound alike" to "they're trying to". Shoddy work, lacking finesse.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> There's really no need to try and intellectualise any of this. It's simple, and I'm sick of having to repeat the obvious: most kids speaking with this accent didn't grow up speaking with it. At a certain age they decided to adopt it due to peer pressure, fashion etc. Many, if not most of them, probably ditch it when they realise that it sounds a bit silly when you're trying to pull a member of the opposite sex who can see just how silly and might laugh. Or when they get a job as a milkman and the old biddies can't understand them when they call for their money. Or whatever.


Ah. Now there is some truth to this post. Only some, mind, in that the process you describe does happen. I've seen it happen to people I knew years ago, so it's nothing new.

I don't think that's what David Starkey was talking about, though. The phenomenon he was talking of is far more general and generalised - it is simply language changing.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> i know i know what a community is. do you know what a community is though?
> 
> you don't seem to when you run away from answering the question.


 
You might know what a community is, but like VP, you still seem to hold to the silly claim that just about anything can be described as a community. Fucking hell, around mid-day today I was part of the sandwich buying community. When I went to Greggs, you couldn't move for the the latte drinking community. Outside stood a couple of members of the Big Issue selling community.

You just couldn't move in town today for all those communities.


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 17, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Ach, your greasy Italian food nauseates me! Bring me the wurst and I'll do my best to eat it!


Don't throw more kohl on the fire.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> You've just shifted the goalposts from "they all sound alike" to "they're trying to". Shoddy work, lacking finesse.


 
You're the one shifting the goalposts. Of course they're all trying to sound alike. That they often can't because their local accents peep through only shows how contrived the one we're talking about actually is. As I've already said.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 17, 2011)

danny la rouge said:


> Don't throw more kohl on the fire.



Shut up and pass me my helmut!


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Ah. Now there is some truth to this post. Only some, mind, in that the process you describe does happen. I've seen it happen to people I knew years ago, so it's nothing new.
> 
> I don't think that's what David Starkey was talking about, though. The phenomenon he was talking of is far more general and generalised - it is simply language changing.


 
I'm not arguing Starkey's case though, even if some of the more wet behind the ears types who were on earlier would like me to.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Who said it was learned from gangsta rap? Not me.



Before I wade back through your posts on this thread are you sure you haven't said that?

Also, if it's not gangsta-rapper-speak what is it?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> You're the one shifting the goalposts. Of course they're all trying to sound alike. That they often can't because their local accents peep through only shows how contrived the one we're talking about actually is. As I've already said.



Yes, you have.

Interminably.

Of course, you haven't substantiated anything, you've avoided defining community, choosing instead to offer your opinion on what isn't a community.

The usual, basically.

Cock hard enough yet?


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> They're called "communities of shared interest", an idea that's been around for, oh, at least 400 years, but was probably first illustrated in the mid-Victorian era by Toennies and Weber, and in the 1970s by Benedict Anderson. Communities not just as multi-tiered and hierarchically-governed geographical communities, but also as loosely-linked "associations" of people who share things as diverse as ethnicity or a fondness for trad jazz.
> 
> Still, I know how little appeal high-flown ideas have for you, so I probably shouldn't mention them.


 
It doesn't matter what some sociologist, or whoever, might call them. They're not communities in any meaningful sense; they're just people who have shared interests or sometimes even goals, and the vast majority will never meet or probably never even want to meet.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> Before I wade back through your posts on this thread are you sure you haven't said that?
> 
> Also, if it's not gangsta-rapper-speak what is it?


 
Yes, it was you and certain others who wanted me to have said it, and even started arguing on that basis. Silly boys.

I did say something like their peer groups and some dickhead singer or rapper they like leads them to speak like this. But that doesn't mean I think this silly accent sounds the same as gangsta rappers do.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Yes, you have.
> 
> Interminably.
> 
> ...


 
Isn't it time you went to your wanking pit for the night?

Pseudo-intellectuals need their sleep.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Yes, it was you and certain others who wanted me to have said it, and even started arguing on that basis. *Silly boys.*



*strokes own breasts*



> I did say something like their peer groups and some dickhead singer or rapper they like leads them to speak like this. But that doesn't mean I think this silly accent sounds the same as gangsta rappers do.



So please answer my question then:
If it's not gangsta-rapper-speak what is it?


----------



## Refused as fuck (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> It doesn't matter what some sociologist, or whoever, might call them.



Do you hear that, those of you who have ever properly studied any subject whatsoever? YOUR OPINION IS WORTHLESS.


----------



## Poo Flakes (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> No (sigh) what I mean is that community is used to describe things thatcan't remotely be considered communities.
> 
> This is contemporary Britain all over: even the leftie (cough) intellectuals can't see the self-serving, liberal middle class crap they're wading in.



Well, I think that the you are right in a sense, there is a lot of middle-class crap being peddled, as with any 'major event', most of it is coming from the Labour Party (nothing liberal about it though). There was a letter to Spiked, which I thought was quite interesting, and probably agree with (providing far more critical analysis than their own analysis, which was self-serving middle-class crap).




			
				William Linton said:
			
		

> While no one wants to condone some of the anti-social elements of the riots (muggings and burnings of buildings attached to homes) what O’Neill fails to consider in his article is that there may be something positive in the act of rioting itself. You say that rioters ‘are simply shattering their own communities’ but this is a little one-sided as they are also building new communities through the act of rioting. A community is not a collection of shops but a relation between people. In riots new bonds are formed and a new sense of collectivity is established. In Hackney what was notable both immediately after and the day following the riot was the amount of people who had come out of their homes, away from their TVs and PCs, to just stand around discussing issues.
> I also think that your article reinforces the misconceived idea, currently circulating, that these riots are somehow less authentic, class conscious, etc, than the riots of the 1980s, when presumably ‘rioters knew how to behave’. In fact I can remember exactly the same representations of those riots at the time in the mainstream media (and by sections of the left) – the rioters were depicted as criminals, smashing up their own communities etc. Some leftists today are bemoaning the fact that rioters lack class consiousness. This seems a little ironic – people who are staying at home watching the riots on TV are complaining when groups of proletarian youth come together to take on the police and loot shops. Of these two groups I know who I think is the most class conscious.
> O’Neill writes: ‘In these new riots, smashing stuff up is all there is. It is childish nihilism.’ This again is not a new argument – I seem to remember Lenin saying something similar in _Left Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder_. But if O’Neill wants his lumpen proletariat to be more ‘politically aware’, how would you like them to attain this awareness? By staying indoors?
> O’Neill writes: ‘this violence is not political, just criminal’. I am not convinced that collective proletarian action is not political just because it does not articulate itself in political terms (although some people clearly have articulated themselves in this way). Nor do I have any objection to criminality per se – any act of collective appropriation of space or commodities is bound to be criminal. I am concerned with anti-social crime (and also anti-social actions that are officially sanctioned, like police shootings) but it is not clear whether incidents of anti-social crime increase, decrease or stay the same during riots.
> *William Linton*, UK



I would be careful to play down identity, no matter how contrived it may, or may not be.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> *strokes own breasts*
> 
> So please answer my question then:
> If it's not gangsta-rapper-speak what is it?



I've already said that it's some ridiculous caricature of a Caribbean accent. There might be some other influences in there but to all intents and purposes that's what it sounds like.

I don't even care if kids want to talk like that until they realise it's about time they grew up a bit, but don't expect people not to laugh, especially if you're white. Why do you think those Asian comedians on that thing that used to be on BBC2 (I think) mock it when Asian kids do it? And Ali G? Because it's fucking daft, that's why.


----------



## elbows (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> There's really no need to try and intellectualise any of this. It's simple, and I'm sick of having to repeat the obvious: most kids speaking with this accent didn't grow up speaking with it. At a certain age they decided to adopt it due to peer pressure, fashion etc. Many, if not most of them, probably ditch it when they realise that it sounds a bit silly when you're trying to pull a member of the opposite sex who can see just how silly and might laugh. Or when they get a job as a milkman and the old biddies can't understand them when they call for their money. Or whatever.



Sounds similar to swearing the way you've described it. Is swearing contrived? I didn't grow up saying words like fuck, I wonder where I got it from. I must sort out my foul mouth, it makes me seem so phoney!


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

Refused as fuck said:


> Do you hear that, those of you who have ever properly studied any subject whatsoever? YOUR OPINION IS WORTHLESS.


 
Do you need to look in a book before you form an opinion on what you see going on around you?


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

elbows said:


> Sounds similar to swearing the way you've described it. Is swearing contrived? I didn't grow up saying words like fuck, I wonder where I got it from. I must sort out my foul mouth, it makes me seem so phoney!


 
Nothing to do with it.

The lengths some of you will go to.


----------



## Poo Flakes (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Do you need to look in a book before you form an opinion on what you see going on around you?



As a general rule, it is advisable.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

Poo Flakes said:


> As a general rule, it is advisable.


 
If you say so.


----------



## Refused as fuck (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Do you need to look in a book before you form an opinion on what you see going on around you?


 Who had post #674 in the pool?


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> I've already said that it's some ridiculous caricature of a Caribbean accent. There might be some other influences in there but to all intents and purposes that's what it sounds like.


It's just a noise. They must have learnt it from the nig-nogs.

Seriously? Are you real?


----------



## elbows (Aug 17, 2011)

I'd be quite glum if my worldview boiled all the complex evolution of the self that coming of age involves, and that continues for many years if you don't grow old of heart before your time, into a finger wagging tale of silly people who needed to grow up, with their contrived ways.

Forms of expression, that mean a lot to people. And why would some of it not appear absurd, especially to those judging from afar? Most human phenomenon are absurd on some level, doesn't mean they are irrelevant, unimportant, worthy of serious scorn, or something to be stamped out.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

elbows said:


> I'd be quite glum if my worldview boiled all the complex evolution of the self that coming of age involves, and that continues for many years if you don't grow old of heart before your time, into a finger wagging tale of silly people who needed to grow up, with their contrived ways.


 
Don't be glum; it's fucking great.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> It's just a noise. They must have learnt it from the nig-nogs.
> 
> Seriously? Are you real?


 
Did I say that?

If in doubt play the race card.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

elbows said:


> And why would some of it not appear absurd, especially to those judging from afar? Most human phenomenon are absurd on some level, doesn't mean they are irrelevant, unimportant, worthy of serious scorn, or something to be stamped out.


 
Who's talking about stamping anything out?

Scorn is fine though.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> I've already said that it's some ridiculous caricature of a Caribbean accent. There might be some other influences in there but to all intents and purposes that's what it sounds like.



Ah so like Starkey, you are hear a Caribbean accent but don't go as far as him as to blame _Jamaicans_.

Have you travelled much LLetsa? I say this because I am wondering how much experience you have of English spoken with very strong accents in other parts of the world and your experiences of Patois in different parts of the world.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Scorn is fine though.


Nah. Scorn is misplaced and shit.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Did I say that?
> 
> If in doubt play the race card.


Those poor kids, they just don't know what they're doing. They just imitate the black gangster patois because they think it's cool.

As opposed to it being a mutually-negotated development of language.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Those poor kids, they just don't know what they're doing. They just imitate the black gangster patois because they think it's cool.
> 
> As opposed to it being a mutually-negotated development of language.


 
Do you know what you sound like?


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Nah. Scorn is misplaced and shit.


 
You display enough.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Do you know what you sound like?



Let me guess...you imagined that said in an imaginary Caribbean accent?


----------



## elbows (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Who's talking about stamping anything out?
> 
> Scorn is fine though.



I suppose scorn is fine in a purely personal context, it goes wrong when it influences politics and judgements about what should be done about a situation, what conclusions should be reached.

It is understandable that humans may look at those younger than ourselves and judge them as harshly as we may judge ourselves, remembering how we thought we knew so much and that our problems were oh so important when we were teens ourselves, and how silly many of the things we held so dear back in the day may seem to us now. And I bet there are other reasons why less than positive feelings about the young may infect the human spirit as we grow old, but I won't witter on about this now.

So yeah, it goes wrong when it moves beyonds the mutterings of an individual and influences policy, judgements on behaviour, etc. Especially as it can be used to power the pathetic excuses that the old offer the young as explanations for the latest failure of the system to provide meaningful opportunity.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> Ah so like Starkey, you are hear a Caribbean accent but don't go as far as him as to blame _Jamaicans_.
> 
> Have you travelled much LLetsa? I say this because I am wondering how much experience you have of English spoken with very strong accents in other parts of the world and your experiences of Patois in different parts of the world.



Lived on and off in the USSR/Russia for a while if that's any help. Not much patois about though.

Do you really believe that the point I'm making is in any way racial? Jesus.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> Let me guess...you imagined that said in an imaginary Caribbean accent?


 
He sounds like some French and Saunders caricature.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Aug 17, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Do you know what you sound like?


Do you know what... oh, well, no, I assume not.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 17, 2011)

elbows said:


> I suppose scorn is fine in a purely personal context, it goes wrong when it influences politics and judgements about what should be done about a situation, what conclusions should be reached.
> 
> It is understandable that humans may look at those younger than ourselves and judge them as harshly as we may judge ourselves, remembering how we thought we knew so much and that our problems were oh so important when we were teens ourselves, and how silly many of the things we held so dear back in the day may seem to us now. And I bet there are other reasons why less than positive feelings about the young may infect the human spirit as we grow old, but I won't wittier on about this now.
> 
> So yeah, it goes wrong when it moves beyonds the mutterings of an individual and influences policy, judgements on behaviour, etc. Especially as it can be used to power the pathetic excuses that the old offer the young as explanations for the latest failure of the system to provide meaningful opportunity.


 
Fucking hell, lighten up mate.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Lived on and off in the USSR/Russia for a while if that's any help. Not much patois about though.


 ....and the point being made to you is by your lack of real experience, your discerning ear, like Starkey's, is not so discerning.



> Do you really beleive that the point I'm making is in any way racial? Jesus.


 I think you are making some mistakes. I am willing to accept that you perceive a 'Caribbean accent/patois' but am challenging your perception because I know you are wrong. Can you accept that?


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> ....and the point being made to you is by your lack of real experience, your discerning ear, like Starkey's, is not so discerning.
> 
> I think you are making some mistakes. I am willing to accept that you perceive a 'Caribbean accent/patois' but am challenging your perception because I know you are wrong. Can you accept that?


 
I can't even tell what you're wittering on about let alone accept it.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> I can't even tell what you're wittering on about let alone accept it.



Okay then. Thank you for your time.


----------



## gavman (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Until the usual bunch of mediocrities started writing about their favourite subject: me.


you wanna lay off the coke. not everything is about you, despite your foghorning attempts to make it so


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

gavman said:


> you wanna lay off the coke. not everything is about you, despite your foghorning attempts to make it so


 
Coke my arse.

I agree that not everything is about me, in which case those who leave off the subject and start writing about my personal shortcomings just because they don't like what I'm saying should take a look at themselves.

And that's all there is to it.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> We're not talking about singers, as has been already mentioned, you pompous fool. And the point is that while it's natural to speak with a local dialect, the one under discussion here is completely contrived.



No, _you're not_ talking about singers. You shouldn't presume to speak for everyone. Though clearly, you're deluded enough to think that only you matter. What do you mean bya "local dialect"? A traditional dialecrt that has been lost over time? Or one that you've made up in your tiny mind?



> And that's all there is to it.



Such arrogance for such a small mind.

Raas claat!


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Coke my arse.
> 
> I agree that not everything is about me, in which case those who leave off the subject and start writing about my personal shortcomings just because they don't like what I'm saying should take a look at themselves.
> 
> And that's all there is to it.



No, but you're making this about you. I see you've taken to signing off with a new cliche too. Well done.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> That's because, as I say above, the accent in question is contrived.


You're contrived. With an ego so large, I'm surprised you haven't been hit by a large meteor or a comet.


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Aug 18, 2011)

Anyway.

Here is something written about a linguist about Starkey and Jamaican Patois.

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3365

 I don't think they understand (as Starkey didn't) that Multi-Ethnic London English is different from JA patois.

But it's more interesting than the last 3 pages of this thread anyway.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 18, 2011)

Poo Flakes said:


> As a general rule, it is advisable.


Emperor LLETSA doesn't need to read books. His brain is that large.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Did I say that?
> 
> If in doubt play the race card.


You're lashing out now. Why don't you admit that you're not as knowledgeable on this subject as you think you are?


----------



## _angel_ (Aug 18, 2011)

gavman said:


> you wanna lay off the coke. not everything is about you, despite your foghorning attempts to make it so


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> I agree that not everything is about me, in which case those who leave off the subject and start writing about my personal shortcomings just because they don't like what I'm saying should take a look at themselves.And that's all


It is your habitual style to take swipes at people based on little snippets of knowledge you've gleaned about their personal lives. You've been doing it on this thread, as a substitute for argument.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 18, 2011)

Local dialects are being lost. That isn't because of "Jamaican patois", it's the effect of urbanisation and technology. Sorry about the pdf.
http://homepages.tesco.net/~david.britain/13.pdf


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> You're lashing out now. Why don't you admit that you're not as knowledgeable on this subject as you think you are?


 
You can talk, you peevish, deluded twat.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> Emperor LLETSA doesn't need to read books. His brain is that large.



I do read books, but I don't need to look in a book every time I need to form an opinion. Nobody but head-up-the-arse politicos would.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> You're lashing out now. Why don't you admit that you're not as knowledgeable on this subject as you think you are?


 
I don't think I'm knowledgeable. I've given an opinion based on what I hear, that's at odds with all the down-with-the-kids old men and women on here.

Take it or fucking leave it.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It is your habitual style to take swipes at people based on little snippets of knowledge you've gleaned about their personal lives. You've been doing it on this thread, as a substitute for argument.


 
As I said, the insults always start flying in my direction first.

Christ, you're a pompous, self-righteous bunch of prigs.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> Local dialects are being lost. That isn't because of "Jamaican patois", it's the effect of urbanisation and technology. Sorry about the pdf.
> http://homepages.tesco.net/~david.britain/13.pdf



Nobody has said is because of 'Jamaican patois,' in this thread. Or even claimed that we're discussing 'Jamaican patois.'


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Fozzie Bear said:


> Anyway.
> 
> I don't think they understand (as Starkey didn't) that Multi-Ethnic London English is different from JA patois.


 
Exactly the point. JA patois is a genuine dialect; the other is artificial, as evidenced by the way it is by no means confined to London.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> As I said, the insults always start flying in my direction first.
> .


That might be true on this thread - I don't know. In general, it is not true, though - you wade in with the insults first often enough.

Playing the hurt little soldier here is pathetic.


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Exactly the point. JA patois is a genuine dialect; the other is artificial, as evidenced by the way it is by no means confined to London.



Saying MLE is artificial is going a step further. Certainly patois has a longer history than MLE. I'm not clear enough about the linguistics to know when something becomes "natural" or whatever.

The point I mentioned earlier about 1996 being the year in which you couldn't tell the ethnicity of an MLE speaker from their voice would seem relevant to that.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> You can talk, you peevish, deluded twat.



This is all you've contributed to this thread: insults and investive.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> That might be true on this thread - I don't know. In general, it is not true, though - you wade in with the insults first often enough.
> 
> Playing the hurt little soldier here is pathetic.



It's true here and it was true on MATB, not that you'd know. Not that it bothers me, but the accusation needs to be answered as people like you (as well as the main perpetrators) always give it out that I'm the nasty bollocks when in reality I only give back what comes my way.

It doesn't really matter though. You really need to get lives, some of you.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Nobody has said is because of 'Jamaican patois,' in this thread. Or even claimed that we're discussing 'Jamaican patois.'



Oh really? You're moving the goalposts again, Emperor LLETSA.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> It doesn't really matter though. You really need to get lives, some of you.



That's rich coming from you. You must spend all your waking hours on here.


----------



## goldenecitrone (Aug 18, 2011)

People speak a certain way to fit in. When I go back to the north of England my vowels become a lot shorter and flatter. When I'm in London I speak like a BBC newsreader.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Fozzie Bear said:


> Saying MLE is artificial is going a step further. Certainly patois has a longer history than MLE. I'm not clear enough about the linguistics to know when something becomes "natural" or whatever.
> 
> The point I mentioned earlier about 1996 being the year in which you couldn't tell the ethnicity of an MLE speaker from their voice would seem relevant to that.


 
Perhaps 1996 was when enough white arseholes, including loads of middle class arseholes at a far remove from inner-city London or any other inner-city, started thinking it was cool to talk like that. Not that the non-whites who do so are any better, as the accent is just as fake for them. As mentioned, those Asian comedians seem able to see it.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> That's rich coming from you. You must spend all your waking hours on here.


 
Nowhere near as many posts as you, you pompous wanker.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> This is all you've contributed to this thread: insults and investive.



What's investive? Does it have a good rate of interest?


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

goldenecitrone said:


> People speak a certain way to fit in. When I go back to the north of England my vowels become a lot shorter and flatter. When I'm in London I speak like a BBC newsreader.


 
Not all of us do. I, for one, have always spoken exactly the same no matter what the circumstances.

It's all a matter of not giving a fuck, I suppose.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> Oh really? You're moving the goalposts again, Emperor LLETSA.



Yes really. Try reading the thread, you smarmy tosser.


----------



## _angel_ (Aug 18, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> That's rich coming from you. You must spend all your waking hours on here.


Your postcount is about five times + more than his!


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Perhaps 1996 was when enough white arseholes, including loads of middle class arseholes at a far remove from inner-city London or any other inner-city, started thinking it was cool to talk like that. Not that the non-whites who do so are any better, as the accent is just as fake for them. As mentioned, those Asian comedians seem able to see it.



I'm less interested in how it operates outside of London. I can see why some people wouldn't like "white working class culture" to be contaminated with external influences, but for me it's an interesting example of a genuine multi-racial working class culture emerging, which is then imitated by middle class people and provincials (as usual).

It would be interesting to overlay the change in language with the rise of mixed-ethnicity kids.


----------



## _angel_ (Aug 18, 2011)

goldenecitrone said:


> People speak a certain way to fit in. When I go back to the north of England my vowels become a lot shorter and flatter. When I'm in London I speak like a BBC newsreader.


Some people pick up accents more easily than others, I know I do. But never done it intentionally. Except trying to lose the Liverpool accent when I came back to Leeds. That was just embarrassing!


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Not all of us do. I, for one, have always spoken exactly the same no matter what the circumstances.
> 
> It's all a matter of not giving a fuck, I suppose.


Are you tone-deaf? Most people who don't pick up new accents when they move are tone deaf.

If you are, you're in quite a small minority. And it has nothing whatever to do with 'not giving a fuck'. That said, if you don't try to modify the register you speak in so that you are understood, that's not good. Certainly not something to be proud of.


----------



## goldenecitrone (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Not all of us do. I, for one, have always spoken exactly the same no matter what the circumstances.
> 
> It's all a matter of not giving a fuck, I suppose.



Wait till your balls drop, you'll be in for a surprise.


----------



## _angel_ (Aug 18, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Are you tone-deaf? Most people who don't pick up new accents when they move are tone deaf.
> 
> If you are, you're in quite a small minority. And it has nothing whatever to do with 'not giving a fuck'.


Age has something to do with it. Some people pick up accents, others don't.


----------



## goldenecitrone (Aug 18, 2011)

_angel_ said:


> Some people pick up accents more easily than others, I know I do. But never done it intentionally. Except trying to lose the Liverpool accent when I came back to Leeds. That was just embarrassing!



It's funny listening to my aunt, who lives in Florida and has a real American accent now. But put her back in Widnes and hear her accent slowly slipping back into Woolyback Widnesian is quite funny.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Fozzie Bear said:


> I'm less interested in how it operates outside of London. I can see why some people wouldn't like "white working class culture" to be contaminated with external influences, but for me it's an interesting example of a genuine multi-racial working class culture emerging, which is then imitated by middle class people and provincials (as usual).
> 
> It would be interesting to overlay the change in language with the rise of mixed-ethnicity kids.


 
It can't really be discussed properly without considering that as it does operate nationwide, it can't be a genuine dialect. Mimicry by people who are not yet fully formed characters is what it's all about.

Surely a genuine multi-racial working class culture would reflect the local area and not be confined to people of a certain age group.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

_angel_ said:


> Age has something to do with it. Some people pick up accents, others don't.


 
People who 'want to fit in' usually have the weakest characters.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> People who 'want to fit in' usually have the weakest characters.




The way you stick to your absurd lines is quite admirable.


----------



## _angel_ (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> People who 'want to fit in' usually have the weakest characters.


Some people are just parrots. My Dad is from Northern Ireland, then lived in midlands, now in North Leeds. Sounds 100% north leeds. I think I am picking up Bramley. People round here don't hear it tho, they think I'm from London.
It's quite natural to pick up accents if you move somewhere else. Not everyone does it tho.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The way you stick to your absurd lines is quite admirable.


 
What's absurd? If you have to change yourself just so you don't 'feel left out' (diddums), all it demonstrates is a weakness of character.


----------



## goldenecitrone (Aug 18, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The way you stick to your absurd lines is quite admirable.



Like a Victorian scientist, desparately trying to link brain size to intelligence despite all the empirical evidence against it.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

_angel_ said:


> Some people are just parrots. My Dad is from Northern Ireland, then lived in midlands, now in North Leeds. Sounds 100% north leeds. I think I am picking up Bramley. People round here don't hear it tho, they think I'm from London.
> It's quite natural to pick up accents if you move somewhere else. Not everyone does it tho.


 
It depends. While you might pick up traces of a new accent, if you adopt one wholesale it indicates effort. Where I live now, the accent is vastly different than the one I grew up speaking. I'd probably have to go to night school to learn it properly.


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> It can't really be discussed properly without considering that as it does operate nationwide, it can't be a genuine dialect. Mimicry by people who are not yet fully formed characters is what it's all about.
> 
> Surely a genuine multi-racial working class culture would reflect the local area and not be confined to people of a certain age group.



It might be possible to argue that it is used "genuinely" by (some) working class Londoners and is then mimiced elsewhere - which was the same with cockney.

I can see what you're saying about culture (and upthread about "communities"). I think there are clear differences between the generations now - possibly greater than ever before because things are so fragmented.

So yes - it is a _youth culture_ we're talking about. I also agree with you that many people may grow out of it, but some won't - possibly the ones that don't end up employed, which may link in with the "dealing with the renegades" thread, I'm not sure.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Fozzie Bear said:


> It might be possible to argue that it is used "genuinely" by (some) working class Londoners and is then mimiced elsewhere - which was the same with cockney.
> 
> I can see what you're saying about culture (and upthread about "communities"). I think there are clear differences between the generations now - possibly greater than ever before because things are so fragmented.
> 
> So yes - it is a _youth culture_ we're talking about. I also agree with you that many people may grow out of it, but some won't - possibly the ones that don't end up employed, which may link in with the "dealing with the renegades" thread, I'm not sure.


 
About the only sensible thing that's been said by one of the said accent's 'defenders.'


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> People who 'want to fit in' usually have the weakest characters.


what about people who talk shite all the time in the face of all the evidence?

http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/david-starkey-on-newsnight.279230/page-25#post-10385440


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> what about people who talk shite all the time in the face of all the evidence?
> 
> http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/david-starkey-on-newsnight.279230/page-25#post-10385440


 
What evidence of anything do you ever provide other than evidence of being a fanatical pedant?


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> What evidence of anything do you ever provide other than evidence of being a fanatical pedant?


if you bothered following my posts you might learn something to your advantage instead of coming across as a dull ignorant buffoon all the time.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> It depends. While you might pick up traces of a new accent, if you adopt one wholesale it indicates effort. Where I live now, the accent is vastly different than the one I grew up speaking. I'd probably have to go to night school to learn it properly.



I would suggest that this is because of your age. You accent has settled and taken root.

The young people we are discussing here are not you.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> I would suggest that this is because of your age. You accent has settled and taken root.
> 
> The young people we are discussing here are not you.


 
The point being that 'the young people' being discussed here take a decision to ditch whatever local accent is 'taking root' in them and start speaking in a contrived accent instead.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> The point being that 'the young people' being discussed here take a decision to ditch whatever local accent is 'taking root' in them and start speaking in a contrived accent instead.



You see I don't think that is correct at all. In many cases it is their local accent.

I can see the point about people from elsewhere 'faking it' but I don't think Starkey was talking about those people at all.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> You see I don't think that is correct at all. In many cases it is their local accent.
> 
> I can see the point about people from elsewhere 'faking it' but I don't think Starkey was talking about those people at all.


 
I'm not really botehred about Starkey, or anything that Starkey might say. But the fact is that only a minority of kids speak like this even in inner-city London, where the accent might have some claim to be 'natural.' But the other fact that it's adopted, for a time, by kids nationwide tells a different story.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> I'm not really botehred about Starkey, or anything that Starkey might say.


 Well this thread is about Starkey's comments and the implications of those comments. If you have an axe to grind create a thread to do that and please stop derailing this one.



> *But the fact is that only a minority of kids speak like this even in inner-city London*, where the accent might have some claim to be 'natural.'



On what basis are you making this assumption and characterising them as a _minority_. This is where I think you are making a big mistake.



> But the other fact that it's adopted, for a time, by kids nationwide tells a different story.


 Again, create a thread to address this and what 'different' story you thing is being told.


----------



## Poo Flakes (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> I do read books, but I don't need to look in a book every time I need to form an opinion. Nobody but head-up-the-arse politicos would.



C'mon LLETSA, not sure if you are taking a strawman position here, but this just reminds of the right-wing's view on AGW. Spiked refer to scientific evidence of anthropocentric global warming as "The Science"; which derides both climate sceptics, who are scientists, and mainstream climate scientists in one go. _We do not need to read 'science' books to have an opinion on climate change/the economy/crime/race relations/chemsitry, we have all experienced the climate changing/jobs/crime/living close to black people/thermal contact._

This is taken to the extreme by Winston Churchill aficionados who think "_Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains_" is conceptually different from thinking becoming a inward-looking member of the bourgeois is a sign of maturity.


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> About the only sensible thing that's been said by one of the said accent's 'defenders.'


which makes it one more sensible thing than you!
I suppose I really should be impressed by the way you have continued to advance an utterly idiotic, irrational, shot-to-pieces line of argument, despite it having been roundly and repeatedly trounced, and so manifestly wrong - but I can't do so. i'm just too busy laughing at you making such a twat of yourself.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Poo Flakes said:


> C'mon LLETSA, not sure if you are taking a strawman position here, but this just reminds of the right-wing's view on AGW. Spiked refer to scientific evidence of anthropocentric global warming as "The Science"; which derides both climate sceptics, who are scientists, and mainstream climate scientists in one go. _We do not need to read 'science' books to have an opinion on climate change/the economy/crime/race relations/chemsitry, we have all experienced the climate changing/jobs/crime/living close to black people/thermal contact._
> 
> This is taken to the extreme by Winston Churchill aficionados who think "_Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains_" is conceptually different from thinking becoming a inward-looking member of the bourgeois is a sign of maturity.


 
I'm not saying you don't have to read books to form opinions about such matters as climate change. I'm saying you don't necessarily have to read books to form opinions about everyday matters for which the evidence of your own eyes and ears is enough.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> which makes it one more sensible thing than you!
> I suppose I really should be impressed by the way you have continued to advance an utterly idiotic, irrational, shot-to-pieces line of argument, despite it having been roundly and repeatedly trounced, and so manifestly wrong - but I can't do so. i'm just too busy laughing at you making such a twat of yourself.


 
When an argument's supposedly been shot to pieces by the likes of you lot then I'm not really worried.

I mean, from the way you all go on, anybody would think you're usuaully right about everything instead of usually wrong.

Anyway, going for me dinner.


----------



## Plumdaff (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> I'm saying you don't necessarily have to read books to form opinions about everyday matters for which the evidence of your own eyes and ears is enough.



That's exactly what some people would say about climate change. Why would this be any different?

I can't quite believe that in the fact of all anecdotal evidence except yours, plus all linguistic evidence you still are sticking to the line that accent is something people "decide" to "temporarily" adopt and then grow out of rather than something which is organic and changes according to mileau.

I've lived all over the UK as an adult and my accent has always changed. Maybe because I've listened to what people were saying?


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> When an argument's supposedly been shot to pieces by the likes of you lot then I'm not really worried.
> 
> I mean, from the way you all go on, anybody would think you're usuaully right about everything instead of usually wrong.
> 
> Anyway, going for me dinner.


Well it has been shot to pieces, so suck it up.
I don't think I'm usually right, I just know when i'm right, and when i'm wrong - unlike you.
Plus, i'm grown-up enough to admit when I've got it wrong - also unlike you.


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> What's absurd? If you have to change yourself just so you don't 'feel left out' (diddums), all it demonstrates is a weakness of character.


utter shite, if you move to somewhere different, and you're young enough, you tend to pick up that accent as a matter of natural process. Nothing to do with 'weakness', and all to do with the interaction between ears, voice and brain.
hence; my time in Lincolnshire when I was 8 left me with a faint Lincs accent, and my accent now is comfortably cockney/estuary, as opposed to herts RP


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> I'm not really botehred about Starkey, or anything that Starkey might say.


I really don't see why not - culturally and socially, you're every bit as reactionary as him.


> But the fact is that only a minority of kids speak like this even in inner-city London,


That is NOT a 'fact', and unproven anywhere as such. We are also talking specifically about w/c kids, which makes it even less likely to be a fact.
Anyway, you're in Manc - honestly, how would you actually _know_ about inner city London kids?



> where the accent might have some claim to be 'natural.'


At last!


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 18, 2011)

_angel_ said:


> Age has something to do with it. Some people pick up accents, others don't.


It has a lot to do with it; there is zero norfolk or Lincolnshire in my dad's accent, despite the fact he's spent the last near-30 years in those counties


----------



## cantsin (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Exactly the point. JA patois is a genuine dialect; the other is artificial, as evidenced by the way it is by no means confined to London.



Jesus, even by your increasingly quasi-troll standards, this is shoddy stuff ...you don't seem to have even a basic knowledge or understanding of how dialects /language work - fair enough, why should you -  but you ll go on at length apparently just cos of the attention it gets you on here...as long of course as you always end up in your Spiked-style anti-progressive position...

FWIW, I live in way out west in N Devon, where the kids in my town - a piss poor ex fishing town -  have a  pretty neutral accent, a trace of West Country, a little bit of 'urban patois ' .....but head  to Bristol, a 100 miles *closer* to London, and the West Country Wurzelly accent/dialect that we know and love suddenly becomes much stronger, lot's of  "Brizzle" and "moi luverrly " - why ? cos accents and dialects ARE often  adopted,are learned,  are 'artificial', they're a form of shared cultural identity that that* can* become stronger as the population becomes denser, and the sense of local indentity gets deeper . Or not. Like all language, it's fluid, elastic, constantly changing and evolving.

Only a reactionary fuckwit could point to language as any kind of driver/indicator in relation to peoples objective social conditions, rather than the structural, socio economics that really matter.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

cantsin said:


> Only a reactionary fuckwit could point to language as any kind of driver/indicator in relation to peoples objective social conditions, rather than the structural, socio economics that really matter.


 
Maybe they could, but I haven't done that.

(You can always rely on the excitable cantsin to jump in with a garbled argument.)


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> I really don't see why not - culturally and socially, you're every bit as reactionary as him.
> 
> That is NOT a 'fact', and unproven anywhere as such. We are also talking specifically about w/c kids, which makes it even less likely to be a fact.
> Anyway, you're in Manc - honestly, how would you actually _know_ about inner city London kids?
> ...


 
I'm not 'in Manc'; I haven't lived 'in Manc' since 1998. I don't claim to know about inner-city London kids, and have done so nowhere. Unlike you, who thinks he knows all about them but is actually an ex-public schoolboy slumming it somewhere in the same vicinity. But you don't have to know them to realise that only a minority can actually truly speak like this even in inner-London, as it's a contrived accent to be adopted and shed according to will and circumstance.

Being called reactionary by standard lefties, incapable of learning as they are, is a badge of honour.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> utter shite, if you move to somewhere different, and you're young enough, you tend to pick up that accent as a matter of natural process. Nothing to do with 'weakness', and all to do with the interaction between ears, voice and brain.
> hence; my time in Lincolnshire when I was 8 left me with a faint Lincs accent, and my accent now is comfortably cockney/estuary, as opposed to herts RP


 
I'm not talking about people who move to a different place as young children. Nowhere did anybody mention young children.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

lagtbd said:


> That's exactly what some people would say about climate change. Why would this be any different?
> 
> I can't quite believe that in the fact of all anecdotal evidence except yours, plus all linguistic evidence you still are sticking to the line that accent is something people "decide" to "temporarily" adopt and then grow out of rather than something which is organic and changes according to mileau.
> 
> I've lived all over the UK as an adult and my accent has always changed. Maybe because I've listened to what people were saying?



Why do you need to read a book about something for which your own eyes and ears provide evidence enough of? This totally unlike complex subjects like climate change.


----------



## cantsin (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Maybe they could, but I haven't done that.
> 
> (You can always rely on the excitable cantsin to jump in with a garbled argument.)



LLetsa, duuuuude, I-T-'S N-O-T A-L-W-A-Y-S A-B-O-U-T Y-O-U .....i was refferring to David Starkey, in the DAVID STARKEY THREAD


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

cantsin said:


> LLetsa, duuuuude, I-T-'S N-O-T A-L-W-A-Y-S A-B-O-U-T Y-O-U .....i was refferring to David Starkey, in the DAVID STARKEY THREAD



Well don't quote me then, arsehole.

(And at your age you shouldn't be saying things like 'duuuude.')


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 18, 2011)

cantsin said:


> LLetsa, duuuuude, I-T-'S N-O-T A-L-W-A-Y-S A-B-O-U-T Y-O-U .....i was refferring to David Starkey, in the DAVID STARKEY THREAD


that was your mistake you see, posting on topic.


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> I'm not 'in Manc'; I haven't lived 'in Manc' since 1998. I don't claim to know about inner-city London kids,.


you said;


> the fact is that only a minority of kids speak like this even in inner-city London,


YOUR words - clear as day, no room for misinterpretation. so stop lying, and stop wriggling


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Pedant's model said:


> that was your mistake you see, posting on topic.


 
This, coming from you, the biggest diverter of threads on the entire internet, takes the biscuit.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> you said;
> 
> YOUR words - clear as day, no room for misinterpretation. so stop lying, and stop wriggling


 
Yes, so? Be able to grasp this obvious fact doesn't entail having to personally know them.


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> I'm not talking about people who move to a different place as young children. Nowhere did anybody mention young children.


I didn't mean it _only_ applies to young children - _obviously_. I was just using myself as an example, you doofus!


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> This, coming from you, the biggest diverter of threads on the entire internet, takes the biscuit.


you've been buggering about on this thread, wanking off about something you've said you're not even too fussed about, for many pages now. you've brought it to the point where any discussion of david starkey on the david starkey thread's a waste of time. congratulations.


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Yes, so? Be able to grasp this obvious fact doesn't entail having to personally know them.


It's NOT an obvious fact, or even a 'fact' at all - in fact, it's a steaming great pile of bullshit - and the implication in the words of yours I quoted was clearly and unambiguously that you spoke from a position of personal knowledge


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Yes, so? Be able to grasp this obvious fact doesn't entail having to personally know them.


you're like an mp, the way you act when you're caught lying.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> you've been buggering about on this thread, wanking off about something you've said you're not even too fussed about, for many pages now. you've brought it to the point where any discussion of david starkey on the david starkey thread's a waste of time. congratulations.


 
Nothing has been off-topic, unlike when you try to jump in after the first post If a thread isn't to your liking, usually to divert attention from the weakness of your politics.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Nothing has been off-topic, unlike when you try to jump in after the first post If a thread isn't to your liking, usually to divert attention from the weakness of your politics.


can you give me an example of how one can jump in before the first post? as for my politics, you've as good as admitted you don't read my posts on threads we don't cross on. so what the fuck do you know of what i've said on hundreds of threads you haven't fucking read?


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> you're like an mp, the way you act when you're caught lying.



Funny how unpopular opinions get transformed into 'lies' and the 'moving of goalposts' by standard lefties like Pickman's, Nino and Streathamite. Every time.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> can you give me an example of how one can jump in before the first post?


 
Thanks-you've just proved my point, Mr Pedant.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 18, 2011)

as for offtopic, this is the op





cantsin said:


> Jesus wept...quoting Enoch Powell...blaming the integration of white 'chavs' with black 'chavs' . and the resulting 'jamaican patois' culture as part of the causes of this week....
> 
> we need the whole transcript/youtube clip but for this utter clown to be employed as a "HISTORIAN" all over the Beeb is in an embarassment .
> 
> meanwhile that interesting young bloke who wrote the Chavs book got about 30 secs to speak


fuck all there about cockney accents


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Thanks-you've just proved my point, Mr Pedant.


but you don't have a point. and if you think that's pedantry you don't know the meaning of the fucking word.


----------



## Poo Flakes (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Being called reactionary by standard lefties, incapable of learning as they are, is a badge of honour.





LLETSA said:


> Why do you need to read a book about something for which your own eyes and ears provide evidence enough of? This totally unlike complex subjects like climate change.



You cannot see the total ludicrous position, in this regard? If we accept the critiques against your position are 'lefties' (a state which you seem to be defining as challenging the contention, on a variety of grounds, that some undefined number of young people have a contrived accent), some of the 'lefties' are simply saying is that in order to understand complex subjects like human behaviour, including language development, you probably ought to read some books on the matter even if it is just to disagree with the author (I would actually argue that the data is all that matters, but each to their own).


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Funny how unpopular opinions get transformed into 'lies' and the 'moving of goalposts' by standard lefties like Pickman's, Nino and Streathamite. Every time.


it's very simple. when you say one thing and then later you say another thing which contradicts the first statement, then you are a liar.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> it's very simple. when you say one thing and then later you say another thing which contradicts the first statement, then you are a liar.



Contradicting yourself doesn't necessarily make you a liar, and I haven't contradicted myself once.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Contradicting yourself doesn't necessarily make you a liar, and I haven't contradicted myself once.


http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/david-starkey-on-newsnight.279230/page-26#post-10386091


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Poo Flakes said:


> You cannot see the total ludicrous position, in this regard? If we accept the critiques against your position are 'lefties' (a state which you seem to be defining as challenging the contention, on a variety of grounds, that some undefined number of young people have a contrived accent), some of the 'lefties' are simply saying is that in order to understand complex subjects like human behaviour, including language development, you probably ought to read some books on the matter even if it is just to disagree with the author (I would actually argue that the data is all that matters, but each to their own).


 
Look, if you want to or need to read books about even the most trivial of matters, nobody is stopping you.

Time on your hands?


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/david-starkey-on-newsnight.279230/page-26#post-10386091


 
Nothing in that link shows evidence of contradiction, and I've already answered this anyway. But here you go again: It's possible to know that the accent is question is fake for most inner-city London kids without personally knowing any inner-city London kids.

You're a pretty naive and credulous bunch of gobshites on the quiet, aren't you?


----------



## _angel_ (Aug 18, 2011)

If I had a Manc accent, I'd fake another one tbh.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Nothing in that link shows evidence of contradiction, and I've already answered this anyway. But here you go again: It's possible to know that the accent is question is fake for most inner-city London kids without personally knowing any inner-city London kids.
> 
> You're a pretty naive and credulous bunch of gobshites on the quiet, aren't you?


i'm sure you've answered this before, but perhaps you could elaborate once more on how an accent can be fake.


----------



## Fruitloop (Aug 18, 2011)

Lots of accents are cultivated though aren't they? The English posh accent is one of the most deliberately cultivated I've ever come across.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 18, 2011)

Fruitloop said:


> Lots of accents are cultivated though aren't they? The English posh accent is one of the most deliberately cultivated I've ever come across.


yes. people adopting or losing accents doesn't mean that their accent is fake. an accent's not like a rolex watch, where some are real and some are fake.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> yes. people adopting or losing accents doesn't mean that their accent is fake. an accent's not like a rolex watch, where some are real and some are fake.



If a conscious decison has been taken and effort made to alter your accent then of course it's fake.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> i'm sure you've answered this before, but perhaps you could elaborate once more on how an accent can be fake.


 
Bcause the accent that came naturally has been ditched and another, contrived, one been consciously adopted.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> If a conscious decison has been taken and effort made to alter your accent then of course it's fake.


and you're arguing that the majority of school children in inner london have made this conscious decision. on what evidence do you base that, given that you only trust your ears and eyes on this.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 18, 2011)

Fruitloop said:


> Lots of accents are cultivated though aren't they? The English posh accent is one of the most deliberately cultivated I've ever come across.


And of course, Starkey is a prime example of this!


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Bcause the accent that came naturally has been ditched and another, contrived, one been consciously adopted.


can you give me a few examples of children who have grown up only with the accent that came naturally, without influence from outside sources?


----------



## Fruitloop (Aug 18, 2011)

So people modulate their behaviour and speech, consciously, to fit into a social mileu?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 18, 2011)

Fruitloop said:


> So people modulate their behaviour and speech, consciously, to fit into a social mileu?


The fakers!


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 18, 2011)

Fruitloop said:


> So people modulate their behaviour and speech, consciously, to fit into a social mileu?


not lletsa!


----------



## Fruitloop (Aug 18, 2011)

This merits further study.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 18, 2011)

any danger of an answer to my posts #793 and #795, lletsa?


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> . Unlike you, who thinks he knows all about them but is actually an ex-public schoolboy slumming it somewhere in the same .


except I haven't done that AT ALL, have I?
what a surprise, LLETSA talking shite again.
Please carry on making an arse of yourself - it's great entertainment!


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Funny how unpopular opinions get transformed into 'lies' and the 'moving of goalposts' by standard lefties like Pickman's, Nino and Streathamite. Every time.


your 'opinions' are being ripped to shreds not because they are 'unpopular', but becuase they are fuckwitted, ignorant, and at stark variance with the plain and obvious reality.
still, seeing as you're so in love with your cassandra complex, keep it up...


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> It doesn't matter what some sociologist, or whoever, might call them. They're not communities in any meaningful sense; they're just people who have shared interests or sometimes even goals, and the vast majority will never meet or probably never even want to meet.



And because you've unilaterally decided that that isn't a community, it isn't?

Oh, and lovely insertion of "some sociologist", emphasising how you're against petti-fogging intellectuals, and are talking from the perspective of Joe Normal, even though you're a graduate.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> *strokes own breasts*



I say, steady on there, mind me eyes!!


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 18, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> I say, steady on there, mind me eyes!!



Sorry  I did that because LLetsa called us all 'silly boys', I had to check, seeing as though he knows more than me


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Isn't it time you went to your wanking pit for the night?



I don't have a wanking pit.

In fact, I suspect you're the only person who does.



> Pseudo-intellectuals need their sleep.



In which case you'd better go to bed, eh?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> Sorry  I did that because LLetsa called us all 'silly boys', I had to check, seeing as though he knows more than me



He knows more than everybody.

And to be fair, it's probably LLETSA who's stroking themselves, sitting in his *grubby grundies thinking "look how I've played them all by posting arrant bullshit that I can't susbstantiate!".

*Sorry of that caused thoughts that need mind bleach to remove, btw!


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

Refused as fuck said:


> Who had post #674 in the pool?



Me.

If the prize includes spending time with LLETSA, though, you can cram it up your Gary!


----------



## love detective (Aug 18, 2011)

with a few reservations i'm generally in agreement with LLETSA

what i am struggling with however is the point of the discussion itself


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Do you know what you sound like?



More importantly, does he care what some no-mark thinks he sounds like?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Coke my arse.



Who the fuck do you think you are, Stevie Nicks?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

_angel_ said:


> Your postcount is about five times + more than his!



Are you including the posts from LLETSA's various subsidiary accounts he's had over the years?


----------



## love detective (Aug 18, 2011)

which ones would they be?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

goldenecitrone said:


> Like a Victorian scientist, desparately trying to link brain size to intelligence despite all the empirical evidence against it.



Well, to be fair, LLETSA's no Cesare Lombroso or Francis Galton, thank fuck.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

love detective said:


> which ones would they be?



Why do you ask?


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> About the only sensible thing that's been said by one of the said accent's 'defenders.'



Thank you.

This thread has now gone to shit, so I think I'll leave off now. (no disrespect to anyone in particular).


----------



## love detective (Aug 18, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Why do you ask?



Because you made an accusation, which I assume you have the information to back up


----------



## Fruitloop (Aug 18, 2011)

Guess the quote:



> Communities are to be distinguished, not by their falsity/genuineness, but by the style in which they are imagined


----------



## love detective (Aug 18, 2011)

pretty obvious


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 18, 2011)

love detective said:


> with a few reservations i'm generally in agreement with LLETSA
> 
> what i am struggling with however is the point of the discussion itself


the thing is, i've said, time and again, that for some kids - many, even - they consciously adopt the dialect to appear 'cool' and get peer acceptance.
However, and equally, for many inner city w/c kids it's just a thing they learn naturally from their environment. It's this he seems to take issue with.
There is no point to the debate, however - there can't be, LLETSA's on it.


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 18, 2011)

love detective said:


> which ones would they be?


well there was Catherine Lech, for one...


----------



## ericjarvis (Aug 18, 2011)

Just as nobody is stopping you making stuff up off the top of your head on the assumption that you can extrapolate absolutely everything from your own direct experience. It's just that when your experience doesn't tally with a lot of other people's you look a fool.


----------



## _angel_ (Aug 18, 2011)

@ streathamite Oh come one do we really need to do this?


----------



## cantsin (Aug 18, 2011)

love detective said:


> with a few reservations i'm generally in agreement with LLETSA
> 
> *what i am struggling with however is the point of the discussion itself[/q*uote]
> 
> that some half assed  support of ol' LLetsa right there buddy...as for "the point " of it all....I'll leave that up to you/whoever.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

love detective said:


> Because you made an accusation, which I assume you have the information to back up



It's not an accusation.

Here, I'll throw you a bone. LLETSA's last-known alternative log-in was "Catherine Bach". Unfortunately for him, he didn't try hard enough to vary "LLETSA opinions from Catherine opinions, and even, IIRC, posted in support of himself.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> well there was Catherine Lech, for one...



Lech? I thought it was Bach? Something ending in "ch", anyway.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

Fruitloop said:


> Guess the quote:



I mentioned the author earlier. The author was dismissed by LLETSA as "some sociologist" who used the name "community" for things that weren't communities.


----------



## Fruitloop (Aug 18, 2011)

Experts, what do they know eh.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> and you're arguing that the majority of school children in inner london have made this conscious decision. on what evidence do you base that, given that you only trust your ears and eyes on this.



Because the people who brought them up and most of those in their neighbourhods and surrounding areas will not speak with this ludicrous fake accent.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> can you give me a few examples of children who have grown up only with the accent that came naturally, without influence from outside sources?


 
No, because I haven't said there are no outside influences. This is different, however, in being a contrived accent that's spoken (or attempted to be spoken) in exactly the same way no matter how far apart the locations.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> not lletsa!


 
No. Nor would plenty of others. Adapting an accent to fit in, as I said, is evidence only of weakness of character.


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 18, 2011)

It's like, y'know, like, people who make a statement where the intonation goes up like a question at the end of the sentence?


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> except I haven't done that AT ALL, have I?
> what a surprise, LLETSA talking shite again.
> Please carry on making an arse of yourself - it's great entertainment!


 
Not as entertaining as the ex-public schoolboy who presents himself as some kind of friend of 'da yoof on de estates.'


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

krtek a houby said:


> It's like, y'know, like, people who make a statement where the intonation goes up like a question at the end of the sentence?


 
Yes, they're cunts as well.


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 18, 2011)

_angel_ said:


> @ streathamite Oh come one do we really need to do this?


nope. i'm leaving it, not worth the aggro


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> your 'opinions' are being ripped to shreds not because they are 'unpopular', but becuase they are fuckwitted, ignorant, and at stark variance with the plain and obvious reality.
> still, seeing as you're so in love with your cassandra complex, keep it up...



You lot couldn't rip an empty cornflake packet to shreds.


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Yes, they're cunts as well.



Not really, it's just the way they speak, y'know? Not good or bad?


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Not as entertaining as the ex-public schoolboy who presents himself as some kind of friend of 'da yoof on de estates.'


what strange company you must keep - i know of no-one fitting that description.
Oh sorry, it's you talking shit again, to cover up the fact your debating skills are so embarrassingly poor


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> You lot couldn't rip an empty cornflake packet to shreds.


well that doesn't say much for you, as you've been made to look a total numpty on this thread


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> And because you've unilaterally decided that that isn't a community, it isn't?
> 
> Oh, and lovely insertion of "some sociologist", emphasising how you're against petti-fogging intellectuals, and are talking from the perspective of Joe Normal, even though you're a graduate.


 
No, I said 'some sociologist' because I don't know if the people you wheeled out as the final word on the matter call themselves sociologists or something else.

A group of people who never meet can't be a community in any meaningful sense. It doesn't matter what you, I or anybody else has to say about it.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> any danger of an answer to my posts #793 and #795, lletsa?


 
Sorry, but I can't answer anybody's points when I'm away from the computer.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> I don't have a wanking pit.


 
Liar.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> More importantly, does he care what some no-mark thinks he sounds like?


 
Stop trying to kiss the moderator.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 18, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> It's not an accusation.
> 
> Here, I'll throw you a bone. LLETSA's last-known alternative log-in was "Catherine Bach". Unfortunately for him, he didn't try hard enough to vary "LLETSA opinions from Catherine opinions, and even, IIRC, posted in support of himself.


 lol

LLETSA, how old are you? Imitating another person with an alternate log-in? For shame.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Are you including the posts from LLETSA's various subsidiary accounts he's had over the years?


 
I've had one, which got banned after a week or so, if I remember correctly.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 18, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> lol
> 
> LLETSA, how old are you? Imitating another person with an alternate log-in? For shame.



IIRC, he had another identity before "LLETSA".


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 18, 2011)




----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> lol
> 
> LLETSA, how old are you? Imitating another person with an alternate log-in? For shame.


 
That's not how it was, and I'm far from the only one.

What it was, for what it's worth, was that having decided that internet boards are a waste of time, I tried to get myself banned. The mods refused, so I 'destroyed' my password. A few weeks later I drifted back with an account I meant to be 'read only.' But I couldn't resist sticking my oar in again and began arguing in a recognisable vein. Somebody shopped me. The account got banned.

Anyway, why are you pseudo-intellectuals so obsessed with me? I would have thought your big brains wouldn't even register my presence.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> IIRC, he had another identity before "LLETSA".


 
No I didn't, gobshite. I never posted here until the old Red Action site was closed. I had the same name there as well.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 18, 2011)

Fair enough. That was a cheap shot. You give out so many cheap shots yourself though.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Stop trying to kiss the moderator.



Stop trying to be iconoclastic.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 18, 2011)

Wow, that's as good as a confession signed in your own blood.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Liar.



You really should stop projecting your own sleaziness onto others.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> well there was Catherine Lech, for one...



As I said, the only one.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 18, 2011)

> Anyway, why are you pseudo-intellectuals so obsessed with me? I would have thought your big brains wouldn't even register my presence.



Very interesting.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> You really should stop projecting your own sleaziness onto others.


 
Sigh. The term wanking pit isn't mine. Blame Alan Sillitoe.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> Very interesting.


 
Unlike you sixth-rate intellectuals?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

Fruitloop said:


> Experts, what do they know eh.



Bunch of cunts, the lot of 'em. Taking their opinions and supporting them with evidence or dismissing them if there isn't any evidence. Obvious fucking wrong'uns, the lot of 'em!


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Unlike you sixth-rate intellectuals?



Keep projecting, LLETSA, I'm finding your rather public disintegration morbidly amusing.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> It's not an accusation.
> 
> Here, I'll throw you a bone. LLETSA's last-known alternative log-in was "Catherine Bach". Unfortunately for him, he didn't try hard enough to vary "LLETSA opinions from Catherine opinions, and even, IIRC, posted in support of himself.


 
I couldn't post in support of myself as , as I said, my normal account was 'destroyed.'

Are you really such a sad bastard as to remember all this? I know you say you have 'health issues' or some such, but you really do need to get yourself some kind of job.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Unlike you sixth-rate intellectuals?


Ah, the victim pose. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you are a well-read, well-travelled, middle-aged university graduate yourself, are you not?


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 18, 2011)

Btw, thanks for disrupting the thread, LLETSA.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> Kept projecting, LLETSA, I'm finding your rather public disintegration morbidly amusing.


 
Try something original. You wouldn't regonise your own 'public disintegration,' let alone anybody else's you soft- brained old psuedo.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> No, I said 'some sociologist' because I don't know if the people you wheeled out as the final word on the matter call themselves sociologists or something else.


So not at all to place yourself as some kind of commonsense opposite, then?



> A group of people who never meet can't be a community in any meaningful sense. It doesn't matter what you, I or anybody else has to say about it.



You're shifting the goalposts again, from "may never meet" to "who never meet".

Oh, and it does matter. How on earth do you think definitions change, if not through evolution of usage?

You're shitting on your own feet.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> Btw, thanks for disrupting the thread, LLETSA.


 
Look back and see that while I was arguing on topic, it was you soft cunts who, as usual, started writing about my personal shortcomings and thus derailed it.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Try something original. You wouldn't regonise your own 'public disintegration,' let alone anybody else's you soft- brained old psuedo.


It _is_ original. What have you got beyond the usual cheap insults?

So did you go to university, LLETSA? I bet you went to Oxbridge and public school. YOu did. Didn't you? You workerist gobshite.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> I couldn't post in support of myself as , as I said, my normal account was 'destroyed.'
> 
> Are you really such a sad bastard as to remember all this? I know you say you have 'health issues' or some such, but you really do need to get yourself some kind of job.



Ah, a good old splodge of LLETSA patronisation! I remember because it's recent.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Sigh. The term wanking pit isn't mine. Blame Alan Sillitoe.



Sillitoe hasn't used the phrase on this thread, so I'll blame the twat that has, thanks all the same.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> So not at all to place yourself as some kind of commonsense opposite, then?
> 
> You're shifting the goalposts again, from "may never meet" to "who never meet".
> 
> ...


 
Who never meet or may never meet. It's all the same. Change all the definitions you want, soft lad; it still doesn't make communities out of what can never be communities.

And I've never uttered the term common sense once. You don't have to get into some false common sense versus intellectualism thing to refute the idea that no argument is valid unless it's been confirmed in a book by some clever person.


----------



## Lock&Light (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Look back and see that while I was arguing on topic, it was you soft cunts who, as usual, started writing about my personal shortcomings and thus derailed it.



That happens very often.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Look back and see that while I was arguing on topic, it was you soft cunts who, as usual, started writing about my personal shortcomings and thus derailed it.


Hardly, it was you who started chucking around insults and making claims that you couldn't substantiate.

That's hypocrisy, matey. Glass houses and stones and all that.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> Wow, that's as good as a confession signed in your own blood.


 
Are you really a fifty-four year old man?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Ah, the victim pose. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you are a well-read, well-travelled, middle-aged university graduate yourself, are you not?



Yup, LLETSA too is a sixth-rate intellectual.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Are you really a fifty-four year old man?



You're quite clearly only 12 years old.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> what strange company you must keep - i know of no-one fitting that description.
> Oh sorry, it's you talking shit again, to cover up the fact your debating skills are so embarrassingly poor



Much preferable are the debating skills of an ex-public schoolboy who presents himself as some kind of voice of 'da yoof in da ghetto.'


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Much preferable are the debating skills of an ex-public schoolboy who presents himself as some kind of voice of 'da yoof in da ghetto.'



I've corrected your tagline


> LLETSA
> 
> _A Gobshite_


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Bunch of cunts, the lot of 'em. Taking their opinions and supporting them with evidence or dismissing them if there isn't any evidence. Obvious fucking wrong'uns, the lot of 'em!


 
For people who purport to believe in 'the self-organisation of the working class' (albeit without ever walking away from your computers), you place an inordinate amout of faith in experts.

Christ, if you can't give an opinion on the topic of this thread without calling on experts, I don't fancy your chances at organising society.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Yup, LLETSA too is a sixth-rate intellectual.


 
The difference being that, unlike you lot, I don't pretend to be an intellectual.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Christ, if you can't give an opinion on the topic of this thread without calling on experts, I don't fancy your chances at organising society.



But you can't support your assertions with evidence. Can you?


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> The difference being that, unlike you lot, I don't pretend to be an intellectual.



I beg to differ.


----------



## _angel_ (Aug 18, 2011)

Grassing folk up 4 having other usernames is pretty unseemly tho.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Who never meet or may never meet. It's all the same.



It's only all the same if I accept your premise rather than the various premises offered by others. Given that they at least do me the courtesy of closely defining their terms, who am I going to pay more attention to, them, or you who doesn't do me that courtesy



> Change all the definitions you want..



I haven't changed any. That's been entirely your territory on this thread.



> soft lad, it still doesn't make communities out of what can never be communities.



Not based on your premise, but to be fair, your premise is insubstantial, unsubstantiated LLETSAism.



> And I've never uttered the term common sense once.



Good, because I haven't claimed that you have. Glad we got that sorted!



> You don't have to get into some false common sense versus intellectualism thing to refute the idea that no argument is valid unless it's been confirmed in a book by some clever person.



I haven't presented any such argument.

Are you sure you're feeling well?


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Ah, the victim pose. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you are a well-read, well-travelled, middle-aged university graduate yourself, are you not?


 
I graduated from university, to which I drifted after redundancy from ten years of manual work, yes. Unlike you lot, however, I don't think graduating from university (where more or less anybody above cretin level can obtain a degree as long as they actually do the work), necessarily makes you an intellectual.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Ah, a good old splodge of LLETSA patronisation! I remember because it's recent.


 
Really VP-do yourself a favour and get yourself some kind of job.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

_angel_ said:


> Grassing folk up 4 having other usernames is pretty unseemly tho.



Many Rice fucking Davies to you, missus!!!


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Really VP-do yourself a favour and get yourself some kind of job.



Do yourself a favour and stop assuming you've got a clue about my employment status.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> Hardly, it was you who started chucking around insults and making claims that you couldn't substantiate.
> 
> That's hypocrisy, matey. Glass houses and stones and all that.


 
Unlike you, I substantiated everything I said with reasoned argument.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> I graduated from university, to which I drifted after redundancy from ten years of manual work, yes. Unlike you lot, however, I don't think graduating from university (where more or less anybody above cretin level can obtain a degree as long as they actually do the work), necessarily makes you an intellectual.



It's only you who's _presumed_ that.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Unlike you, I substantiated everything I said with reasoned argument.


 You _did_ what?


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Do yourself a favour and stop assuming you've got a clue about my employment status.


 
Can't involve many hours if you can post up tens of thousands of posts on here, and never miss a day.

If you don't want your employment status mentioned, don't write about in on a public forum.


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 18, 2011)

_angel_ said:


> Grassing folk up 4 having other usernames is pretty unseemly tho.


if you mean what i did oin this thread, it was hardly 'grassing' as - tbf - LLETSA openly and honestly admitted it at the time.
'remembering/reminding' would be more apt


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Unlike you, I substantiated everything I said with reasoned argument.


No, you've imagined that. You've substantiated nothing. Your argument, fwiw, is based entirely on the same false premises as Starkey's. Only you're too wilfully ignorant and egotistical to see it.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> It's only you who's _presumed_ that.


 
Fuck off-you clearly regard yourself of some kind of intellectual heavyweight. Most of you hysterical wankers in this thread do.


----------



## love detective (Aug 18, 2011)

cantsin said:


> that some half assed support of ol' LLetsa right there buddy...as for "the point " of it all....I'll leave that up to you/whoever.



I may be wrong, but it's interesting to note that the amount of anti IWCA/RA type posts from you seems to have increased somewhat ever since we decided not to give the company you work for the distribution gig for the e-version of Beating the Fascists


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 18, 2011)

Bet you went to Oxbridge, LLETSA.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> You _did_ what?


 
I offered an argument and backed it up with reasons for what I say. I didn't ask anybody to agree.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> The difference being that, unlike you lot, I don't pretend to be an intellectual.



_*An excerpt from Mister LLETSA's Dictionary*_

Intellectual. _a_ & _n_. Person who disagrees with me on Urban75.


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Unlike you, I substantiated everything I said with reasoned argument.


that's your best gag yet, keep 'em coming
fuck, this is better than tobyjug


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> Bet you went to Oxbridge, LLETSA.


 
Bet what you want, you mealy mouthed, smarmy prick.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Fuck off-you clearly regard yourself of some kind of intellectual heavyweight. Most of you hysterical wankers in this thread do.


More projection.

You really need to have a lie down... or take some valium or something. You're not right in the head.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> _*An excerpt from Mister LLETSA's Dictionary*_
> 
> Intellectual. _a_ & _n_. Person who disagrees with me on Urban75.


 
Go on, you all fancy yourselves as in the intellectual vanguard.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Bet what you want, you mealy mouthed, smarmy prick.


Keep the original insults coming, LLETSA.

Ya bumba claat ting.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> if you mean what i did oin this thread, it was hardly 'grassing' as - tbf - LLETSA openly and honestly admitted it at the time.
> 'remembering/reminding' would be more apt


 
Yes, after I was grassed up. The reason I admitted it was that I wasn't bothered about being grassed up as, unlike you lot, I don't take this in any way seriously.

Jesus, some of you really seem to think all this is important.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Can't involve many hours if you can post up tens of thousands of posts on here, and never miss a day.



Tens of thousands of posts over 8 years, and yet nowhere near as many as other posters who've been here either longer or shorter.

As for never missing a day, also shite.

But then it's one of your stocks-in-trade.



> If you don't want your employment status mentioned, don't write about in on a public forum.



I'm on DLA. That only reflects on my employment status if you take it to mean that anyone on DLA doesn't work, Noddy.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> Keep the original insults coming, LLETSA.
> 
> Ya bambo claat ting.


 
Insults always come my way first. And just look at you all again, following me round again, all snapping at my ankles like a bunch of yapping lapdogs.

Anyway, I'm off for a bit. Hospital appointment to attend.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> I offered an argument and backed it up with reasons for what I say. I didn't ask anybody to agree.



It's a bit of a quibble, but you backed up your argument with your own opinions, not with reasons.

A reason, as it's name should imply, requires reasoning.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Tens of thousands of posts over 8 years, and yet nowhere near as many as other posters who've been here either longer or shorter.
> 
> As for never missing a day, also shite.
> 
> ...


 
Touched a nerve?


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> It's a bit of a quibble, but you backed up your argument with your own opinions, not with reasons.
> 
> A reason, as it's name should imply, requires reasoning.



My own opinions and the reasons why I hold them.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Insults always come my way first. And just look at you all again, following me round again, all snapping at my ankles like a bunch of yapping lapdogs.
> 
> Anyway, I'm off for a bit. Hospital appointment to attend.



This guy's a fucking comedy genius.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Go on, you all fancy yourselves as in the intellectual vanguard.



Not at all. If I fancied myself as part of an "intellectual vanguard" as opposed to being a member of an online equivalent of a sixth-form debating society, do you really think I'd waste time and effort satirising you?

Get a fucking grip!!!


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> My own opinions and the reasons why I hold them.



Those reasons have been _accepted_ and expanded upon by way of additional information. You refuse to accept that additional information, you choose then to remain ignorant.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Touched a nerve?



What, because I called you Noddy? Nope.

I just dislike the thought that anyone might be so misinformed as to assume that a DLA claimant wouldn't, because they claimed DLA, actually work as well.

Why? Because there are a lot of ill-informed people, some of them even in government, who assume exactly that, and *that* narks me.


----------



## love detective (Aug 18, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> It's not an accusation.
> 
> Here, I'll throw you a bone. LLETSA's last-known alternative log-in was "Catherine Bach". Unfortunately for him, he didn't try hard enough to vary "LLETSA opinions from Catherine opinions, and even, IIRC, posted in support of himself.



So to go back to your original accusation - if you add the posts from that one other account (i.e. not subsidiary account*s* as you previously suggested) - does it substantially change the number of posts that is reflected in LLETSA's own actual post count?

If so then fair enough you may have some kind of valid point - if not, then what exactly is your point?


----------



## _angel_ (Aug 18, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> This guy's a fucking comedy genius.


That's you that is.


----------



## cantsin (Aug 18, 2011)

as the person who started the thread, can I suggest we either get back on topic, or let the bloody thing die , the LLetsa vs everyone thing has been done to death, and like everything else ever on the interweb, ain't coming  to any useful conclusion soon.No big deal, but it never helps the forum in general when it all descends into daftness , and no good ever comes of it.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

love detective said:


> So to go back to your original accusation - if you add the posts from that one other account (i.e. not subsidiary account*s* as you previously suggested) - does it substantially change the number of posts that is reflected in LLETSA's own actual post count?
> 
> If so then fair enough you may have some kind of valid point - if not, then what exactly is your point?



Care to explain why I would wish to answer to your interrogation? 

And why do I need to have a point? Why can't I be one of the dogs biting at LLETSA's heels?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

cantsin said:


> as the person who started the thread, can I suggest we either get back on topic, or let the bloody thing die , the LLetsa vs everyone thing has been done to death, and like everything else ever on the interweb, ain't coming to any useful conclusion soon.No big deal, but it never helps the forum in general when it all descends into daftness , and *no good ever comes of it.*



Take solace from the knowledge that laughter is excellent for lowering blood pressure.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 18, 2011)

_angel_ said:


> That's you that is.



I'm not advertising for an assistant but I'll keep your details on file.


----------



## love detective (Aug 18, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Care to explain why I would wish to answer to your interrogation?



Because it was you alone who first raised the incredibly important question, as to:-

_(are) you including the posts from LLETSA's various subsidiary accounts he's had over the years?_

Since being furnished with the exact same information you originally strived towards , you now seem strangely reticent to pursue your original line of inquiry.




> And why do I need to have a point? Why can't I be one of the dogs biting at LLETSA's heels?



knock yourself out - if accumulating 61,000+ posts on an internet discussion board is what floats your boat then by all means continue


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Insults always come my way first.


This is the biggest lie you can tell, and you keep telling it.
That is NOT the case - what is the case is that someone makes a reasoned, if bracing, criticism of you, which you can't handle (which is pretty dismal for a middle-aged bloke, but that's by the by), you presumably construe that as an "insult" - which it isn't - and you then kickj off with the insults


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Yes, after I was grassed up. The reason I admitted it was that I wasn't bothered about being grassed up as, unlike you lot, I don't take this in any way seriously.
> 
> Jesus, some of you really seem to think all this is important.


I haven't a scooby who grassed you - not bothered either way, tbh - but it WAS pretty obvious you were CL - and several people guessed quite quickly


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Unlike you, I substantiated everything I said with reasoned argument.


no,you substantiated it with ill-informed, _unreasoned_ argument that fell apart at the slightest touch.
I would suggest there is a difference


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

love detective said:


> Because it was you alone who first raised the incredibly important question, as to:-
> 
> _(are) you including the posts from LLETSA's various subsidiary accounts he's had over the years?_
> 
> Since being furnished with the exact same information you originally strived towards , you now seem strangely reticent to pursue your original line of inquiry.




It's commonly known as "can't be arsed".




> knock yourself out - if accumulating 61,000+ posts on an internet discussion board is what floats your boat then by all means continue



Thanks for your permission, oh illustrious dictator of my fate!


----------



## love detective (Aug 18, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> It's commonly known as "can't be arsed".



Given your original allegation has been shown to be completely baseless i'm not surprised

A better man wouldn't hide behind 'can't be arsed' however


----------



## gavman (Aug 18, 2011)

Fozzie Bear said:


> Anyway.
> 
> Here is something written about a linguist about Starkey and Jamaican Patois.
> 
> ...


just loving the opening line:

A week after the riots that sprang up across a large part of England, pundits are struggling to find smart and profound things to say. One of the least successful has been David Starkey, a historian and veteran broadcaster.


----------



## gavman (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> As I said, the insults always start flying in my direction first.
> 
> Christ, you're a pompous, self-righteous bunch of prigs.


then fuck off and let the grown ups talk, you second rate troll


----------



## gavman (Aug 18, 2011)

krtek a houby said:


> It's like, y'know, like, people who make a statement where the intonation goes up like a question at the end of the sentence?


i think you mean australians, eh?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

love detective said:


> Given your original allegation has been shown to be completely baseless i'm not surprised



No, it's been stated to be completely baseless, and I can't be arsed to argue. Slight difference.



> A better man wouldn't hide behind 'can't be arsed' however



Wouldn't they? Good for them!


----------



## Fruitloop (Aug 18, 2011)

australasian interrogative intonation, hmm?


----------



## gavman (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> No, I said 'some sociologist' because I don't know if the people you wheeled out as the final word on the matter call themselves sociologists or something else.
> 
> A group of people who never meet can't be a community in any meaningful sense. It doesn't matter what you, I or anybody else has to say about it.


no such thing as an online community then?
perhaps you're just not wanted


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Go on, you all fancy yourselves as in the intellectual vanguard.


yeah, SURE I do...


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> Hardly, it was you who started chucking around insults and making claims that you couldn't substantiate.
> 
> That's hypocrisy, matey. Glass houses and stones and all that.


 
Read the thread, you dishonest slime. As usual, it isn't me who starts with the insults. I don't think I've ever had an exchange with you personally where you don't abandon the argument and start writing about what a rotter I am.

And what else is there but insults to fall back on when you've got a gaggle of cliche parroting mediocrities and idiots following you around insulting you?


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> Those reasons have been _accepted_ and expanded upon by way of additional information. You refuse to accept that additional information, you choose then to remain ignorant.


 
On the contrary, I accepted the additional 'information' and rejected most of it. As is my prerogative if it makes no sense.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

gavman said:


> no such thing as an online community then?
> perhaps you're just not wanted


 
It's an online something but it isn't a community in any meaningful sense of the word.

Want me or not, here I am.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> It's a bit of a quibble, but you backed up your argument with your own opinions, not with reasons.
> 
> A reason, as it's name should imply, requires reasoning.


 
Everybody's offered their own opinions, you included. Offering opinion is reasoning as long as you explain yourself clearly. And by fuck do some of you need things explaining. Over and over.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Not at all. If I fancied myself as part of an "intellectual vanguard" as opposed to being a member of an online equivalent of a sixth-form debating society, do you really think I'd waste time and effort satirising you?
> 
> Get a fucking grip!!!



You what? You all clearly think you're far cleverer than you are, passing off your off-the peg opinions and regurgitated utterings of cleverer people as the best hope of the working class.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Everybody's offered their own opinions, you included. Offering opinion is reasoning *as long as you explain yourself clearly. And by fuck do some of you need things explaining. Over and over*.



Has it ever occurred to you that you're not explaining yourself clearly. and that *that* is why you end up "explaining. Over and over"?

Nah, stupid question.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> What, because I called you Noddy? Nope.
> 
> I just dislike the thought that anyone might be so misinformed as to assume that a DLA claimant wouldn't, because they claimed DLA, actually work as well.
> 
> Why? Because there are a lot of ill-informed people, some of them even in government, who assume exactly that, and *that* narks me.


 
I don't know what you claim or whether you work. I just assumed you didn't work, what with your tens of thosusands of posts and never missing a day on here.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Has it ever occurred to you that you're not explaining yourself clearly. and that *that* is why you end up "explaining. Over and over"?
> 
> Nah, stupid question.


 
It's because you all just come out with the same stuff I've already answered over and over again like wind-up toys.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> You what? You all clearly think you're far cleverer than you are, passing off your off-the peg opinions and regurgitated utterings of cleverer people as the best hope of the working class.



Oh dear.
I don't offer myself as the best hope of the working class, or even as any hope of the working class.

As for how clever I think I am, I don't. I've admitted time and again on here that at best I'm a hack. I don't have the patience to be anything else.

But hey, if spewing bile makes you feel better about yourself, go right ahead. being dissed doesn't really bother me.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

love detective said:


> Because it was you alone who first raised the incredibly important question, as to:-
> 
> _(are) you including the posts from LLETSA's various subsidiary accounts he's had over the years?_
> 
> ...


 
Why is it always those who have the most posts to their names who accuse others of posting too much? Nino, VP, Steathamite etc etc. They all practically live on here. How they get time to do anything else beats me.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> I don't know what you claim or whether you work. I just assumed you didn't work, what with your tens of thosusands of posts and never missing a day on here.



And again the _nudnik_ makes a comment about postcounts and how I never miss a day. What's wrong, didn't my first rebuttal get through, or are you just repeating yourself because you've run out of anything else to say?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Why is it always those who have the most posts to their names who accuse others of posting too much? Nino, VP, Steathamite etc etc. They all practically live on here. How they get time to do anything else beats me.



Perhaps we're able to multi-task. You know, do more than one thing at a time?


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> This is the biggest lie you can tell, and you keep telling it.
> That is NOT the case - what is the case is that someone makes a reasoned, if bracing, criticism of you, which you can't handle (which is pretty dismal for a middle-aged bloke, but that's by the by), you presumably construe that as an "insult" - which it isn't - and you then kickj off with the insults



It is true, and was, as I said, also true on MATB. It's because you all get frustrated when you can't get the better of somebody. Better, then, to start writing about what scoundrels they are then expose the weakness and banality of your arguments.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> It's because you all just come out with the same stuff I've already answered over and over again like wind-up toys.



yes, that's right isn't it. And people don't attempt to elicit answers "over and over again" because your original answers were threadbare, oh no.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> It's commonly known as "can't be arsed".


 
It's commonly known as talking bollocks, something you're expert in. Ever thought of changing your name to Violent Windbag?


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> I haven't a scooby who grassed you - not bothered either way, tbh - but it WAS pretty obvious you were CL - and several people guessed quite quickly


 
I wasn't bothred who grassed, as I never made an effort to hide the fact that it was me. It was only for about a fortnight anyway. Nice to see you all remember the important stuff in life.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> It is true, and was, as I said, also true on MATB. It's because you all get frustrated when you can't get the better of somebody. Better, then, to start writing about what scoundrels they are then expose the weakness and banalityy of your arguments.


You're an expert on weak and banal arguments, so I suppose you'd have some insight there, given you produce so many yourself.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> It's commonly known as talking bollocks, something you're expert in. Ever thought of changing your name to Violent Windbag?



Ever though of changing yours to bitter twat?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> I wasn't bothred who grassed, as I never made an effort to hide the fact that it was me. It was only for about a fortnight anyway. Nice to see you all remember the important stuff in life.



Well, you're so very important to everyone on Urban. Of course everyone remembers stuff about you.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

gavman said:


> then fuck off and let the grown ups talk, you second rate troll


 
Who's this pipsqueak? Never noticed him before.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

ViolentWindbag said:


> Ever though of changing yours to bitter twat?


 
I'm always accused of being bitter on here, but it's never made cear what i'm supposed to be bitter about.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> And again the _nudnik_ makes a comment about postcounts and how I never miss a day. What's wrong, didn't my first rebuttal get through, or are you just repeating yourself because you've run out of anything else to say?


 
There's been no rebuttal, just more wind.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Perhaps we're able to multi-task. You know, do more than one thing at a time?


 
What, like watch Loose Women and that as well as typing?


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> yes, that's right isn't it. And people don't attempt to elicit answers "over and over again" because your original answers were threadbare, oh no.


 
You all simply repeat the same things as though the discussion's never been had. A bit like your politics: keep on spouting the same old stuff and surely one day people will be ready for it.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Well, you're so very important to everyone on Urban. Of course everyone remembers stuff about you.


 
The thing is, you're all examples of people for whom all this is more real than real life. That's why you remember the trivial stuff.


----------



## DotCommunist (Aug 18, 2011)

any chance we could all shut the fuck up and discuss starkeys comments rather than being in the vinegars of a row with someone who is clearly not going to change his mind even if god himself came down and said 'YOU! LLETSA! IT IS A GENEUINE SOCIOLECT FORMED THROUGH MANY INTERACTING ACCENTS AND POPULARISED THROUGH A CERTAIN SOCIAL FERTILIZATION OF MEDIA AND FURTHERMORE AROSE FROM GENUINE SPEAKERS WITHIN A LONDON SPHERE! HAST THOU NOT WATCHED KIDULTHOOD? SATAN SENT IT TO INSTRUCT THEE!'

so can we move on? cos this current avenue is as fruitless as a tree that has no fruit


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> any chance we could all shut the fuck up and discuss starkeys comments rather than being in the vinegars of a row with someone who is clearly not going to change his mind even if god himself came down and said 'YOU! LLETSA! IT IS A GENEUINE SOCIOLECT FORMED THROUGH MANY INTERACTING ACCENTS AND POPULARISED THROUGH A CERTAIN SOCIAL FERTILIZATION OF MEDIA AND FURTHERMORE AROSE FROM GENUINE SPEAKERS WITHIN A LONDON SPHERE! HAST THOU NOT WATCHED KIDULTHOOD? SATAN SENT IT TO INSTRUCT THEE!'
> 
> so can we move on? cos this current avenue is as fruitless as a tree that has no fruit


 
All the little idiots talking like this have watched Kidulthood.


----------



## DotCommunist (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> All the little idiots talking like this have watched Kidulthood.


 
Well let us hope they didn't waste any time on the sequel 'Adulthood' because that was properly rubbish, and I don't like to see one of Doctor Who's former assistants swearing.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> Well let us hope they didn't waste any time on the sequel 'Adulthood' because that was properly rubbish, and I don't like to see one of Doctor Who's former assistants swearing.


 
Never has there been a more thoroughly dislikeable cast of characters since Human Traffic.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 18, 2011)

So although LLetsa does not want to discuss the comments made by Starkey, he wants to dominate this thread? Why is that?


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> So although LLetsa does not want to discuss the comments made by Starkey, he wants to dominate this thread? Why is that?



If you remember, we discussed the issue raised by Starkey for some time. Then you and others let it degenerate into a thread about me because you didn't like what I was saying.

What do you expect me to do when insults are being thrown my way by a gaggle of arseholes?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> If you remember, we discussed the issue raised by Starkey for some time. Then you and others let it degenerate into a thread about me because you didn't like what I was saying.



We made this thread about you? Check the post count honey and take some responsibility please.

Interestingly your behaviour and analysis of what has happened on this thread mirrors that of Starkey, blaming others, selective reading, not taking any responsibility etc. Just saying.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> We made this thread about you? Check the post count honey and take some responsibility please.
> 
> Interestingly your behaviour and analysis of what has happened on this thread mirrors that of Starkey, blaming others, selective reading, not taking any responsibility etc. Just saying.



Sigh. When you have half a dozen or more people writing about you, how can you not post a lot?

Selective reading? As I said, no reading is necessary when it comes to this subject. Blaming others? Which others? For what?

I have difficulty understanding what you are on about and why you feel so strongly about the subject. Can't stop your kids talking in this daft fashion and need to justify it?


----------



## peterkro (Aug 18, 2011)

Has lletsa gone postal on the thread and offed all the real posters?


----------



## cantsin (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Well don't quote me then, arsehole.
> 
> (And at your age you shouldn't be saying things like 'duuuude.')



you really didnt cover yourself in glory in this thread my old mucker...time to regroup I reckon.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

cantsin said:


> you really didnt cover yourself in glory in this thread my old mucker...time to regroup I reckon.


 
There was nothing wrong with the thread until the usual suspects started doing what they usually do when one poster won't budge on his argument.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 18, 2011)

Sharing because it's good to share.... 



> *Civil disorder and looting hits Britain*
> 
> *We have been here before*
> 
> ...



Continued here:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/bagehot/2011/08/civil-disorder-and-looting-hits-britain-0


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Because the people who brought them up and most of those in their neighbourhods and surrounding areas will not speak with this ludicrous fake accent.


no, i asked on what evidence do you base your claim, not post up a load of shite which doesn't even masquerade as evidence. as you've already admitted that you only need the evidence of your eyes and ears on this point, and given that your ears and eyes haven't been watching this in inner city london, you're talking shit. again.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> Sharing because it's good to share....
> 
> Continued here:
> 
> http://www.economist.com/blogs/bagehot/2011/08/civil-disorder-and-looting-hits-britain-0


 
What has this got to do with anything I've said?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 18, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> What has this got to do with anything I've said?



Hello! Again, this thread is not about YOU!!!!


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 18, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> no, on what evidence do you base your claim, not post up a load of shite which doesn't even masquerade as evidence. as you've already admitted that you only need the evidence of your eyes and ears on this point, and given that your ears and eyes haven't been watching this in inner city london, you're talking shit. again.


 
How many times do i have to say that I haven't tried to offer evidence? I've offered an opinion.

Neither has anybody else offered evidence. It isn't an argument that requires evidence. And it isn't an argument solely about inner-city London.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 19, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> Hello! Again, this thread is not about YOU!!!!


 
Never said it was, but it was your next response to a question I'd just asked you.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 19, 2011)

Pickman's model][quote="LLETSA said:


> Bcause the accent that came naturally has been ditched and another, contrived, one been consciously adopted.


can you give me a few examples of children who have grown up only with the accent that came naturally, without influence from outside sources?[/quote]


LLETSA said:


> No, because I haven't said there are no outside influences. This is different, however, in being a contrived accent that's spoken (or attempted to be spoken) in exactly the same way no matter how far apart the locations.


so for all your toss about 'natural accents', you now admit there are no natural accents. all accents are, of course, contrived - artificial - in that they are not 'natural'.

in the first post of yours i quote you say there are accents which 'come naturally'. the second post - in response to my question - says there are no natural accents. you can't have it both ways. you may want to be a master debater but you end up looking like a wanker.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 19, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> How many times do i have to say that I haven't tried to offer evidence? I've offered an opinion.
> 
> Neither has anybody else offered evidence. It isn't an argument that requires evidence. And it isn't an argument solely about inner-city London.


you made a claim about inner city london. no one forced you to. you did it all on your own. this argument may not be solely about inner city london - but all you can base your case on, given the limitations on forms of evidence you're happy with (ie eyes and ears and not books) are your senses. and you've not observed this in inner city london by your own account.

you're a shoddy liar, lletsa. and not for the first time.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 19, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Never said it was, but it was your next response to a question I'd just asked you.



Read up the thread. Between your question (assumption) about my interests in Starkey's comments I had decided _again_ that discussing this with you is pointless. 4 posts later, I  shared an article....I did not quote you, my post is nothing to do with you, this thread is not about you. Stop imagining it to be please.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 19, 2011)

i've heard they shut the ra boards because nothing else would get rid of lletsa.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 19, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> can you give me a few examples of children who have grown up only with the accent that came naturally, without influence from outside sources?


so for all your toss about 'natural accents', you now admit there are no natural accents. all accents are, of course, contrived - artificial - in that they are not 'natural'.

in the first post of yours i quote you say there are accents which 'come naturally'. the second post - in response to my question - says there are no natural accents. you can't have it both ways. you may want to be a master debater but you end up looking like a wanker.[/quote]



Pickman's model said:


> can you give me a few examples of children who have grown up only with the accent that came naturally, without influence from outside sources?


so for all your toss about 'natural accents', you now admit there are no natural accents. all accents are, of course, contrived - artificial - in that they are not 'natural'.

in the first post of yours i quote you say there are accents which 'come naturally'. the second post - in response to my question - says there are no natural accents. you can't have it both ways. you may want to be a master debater but you end up looking like a wanker.[/quote]

You're, as usual, deliberately misinterpreting what I said. Only a fool can claim there's no difference between an accent that somebody grew up speaking, the same one as their parents, neighbourhoods, the wider town etc, and one that they might decide to adopt for a time because of fashion or peer pressure. Whether outside influences or generational differences etc come into local accents or not (they obviously do), adopting wholesale a completely different, contrived accent, one that's the same no matter what part of the country you live in, is something else entitrely.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 19, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> i've heard they shut the ra boards because nothing else would get rid of lletsa.


 
The fascists and pseudo fascists on there were more interesting to argue with than the likes of you, and some of them were more intelligent/better debaters.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 19, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> Read up the thread. Between your question (assumption) about my interests in Starkey's comments I had decided _again_ that discussing this with you is pointless. 4 posts later, I shared an article....I did not quote you, my post is nothing to do with you, this thread is not about you. Stop imagining it to be please.


 
If that's the case, why do you keep addressing me? You can't have it both ways.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 19, 2011)

Pedant's Model: 10388545 said:
			
		

> The same kind of diversionary, pedantic shit he wheels out in every thread no matter what the subject.


.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 19, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> .


i see that while you may have left the playground, the playground hasn't left you. perhaps you could share with everyone else why you think it the act of an intelligent man to piss about with usernames and invent quotes.


----------



## Lock&Light (Aug 19, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> perhaps you could share with everyone else why you think it the act of an intelligent man to piss about with usernames and invent quotes.



That's something I've seen you do.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 19, 2011)

Lock&Light said:


> That's something I've seen you do.


no it isn't. you're a worse liar than lletsa.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 19, 2011)

Pedant's model said:


> I used to be The Black Hand's bag carrier and loyal disciple until he realised I was just an hopeless pedant.


.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 19, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> .


carry on chief, say something outrageous.


----------



## Mrs Magpie (Aug 19, 2011)

LLETSA, what is up with you? Are you just pissed and in a pugilistic frame of mind? Whatever the reason, stop now.


----------



## Mrs Magpie (Aug 19, 2011)

Seriously, stop now or you can cool your heels for the weekend.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 19, 2011)

Mrs Magpie said:


> LLETSA, what is up with you? Are you just pissed and in a pugilistic frame of mind? Whatever the reason, stop now.


 
Haven't you seen the posters who do nothing other than throw insults my way?

As I've said before, ban me if you want; it's all the same to me. What are you suddenly doing here anyway? Has Pickman's grassed again?


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 19, 2011)

Mrs Magpie said:


> Seriously, stop now or you can cool your heels for the weekend.


 
Going away for the wekend anyway, as it happens.


----------



## Mrs Magpie (Aug 19, 2011)

Oh for fucks sake! I've been reading this thread since it started and you have just been being a complete arsehole all over the shop. It's doesn't take a massive intellect to notice your disruptiveness and aggression. As someone said earlier THIS THREAD IS NOT ABOUT YOU!


----------



## Mrs Magpie (Aug 19, 2011)

Or are you David Starkey?


----------



## Mrs Magpie (Aug 19, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Going away for the wekend anyway, as it happens.


You sound like one of my grandchildren! "Oh I have to leave the room? Sulk, sulk, well I'm going outside and I'm going to sit in this puddle and then die of cold and that's just what you wanted isn't it granny!"


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 19, 2011)

Mrs Magpie said:


> Oh for fucks sake! I've been reading this thread since it started and you have just been being a complete arsehole all over the shop. It's doesn't take a massive intellect to notice your disruptiveness and aggression. As someone said earlier THIS THREAD IS NOT ABOUT YOU!



In actual fact, and as I keep having to say, I did nothing other than present an argument, perhaps with a certain amount of sarcasm, that ran counter to the predictable commonplaces most others came out with. They didn't like it and started throwing insults. Why am I expected not to give it back?

Anyway, as I said, you don't like it, you know what to do.


----------



## Mrs Magpie (Aug 19, 2011)

OK, sit in your puddle and sulk, silly boy.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 19, 2011)

Mrs Magpie said:


> You sound like one of my grandchildren! "Oh I have to leave the room? Sulk, sulk, well I'm going outside and I'm going to sit in this puddle and then die of cold and that's just what you wanted isn't it granny!"


 
What, because I said that as it happens I won't be around at the weekend anyway if you ban me? If that disappoints you then, like I said, ban me for good.


----------



## LLETSA (Aug 19, 2011)

Mrs Magpie said:


> OK, sit in your puddle and sulk, silly boy.


 
What gives you the idea I'm sulking?

Stop kissing the arses of you favoured kind of poster. You're supposed to be neutral as a moderator.


----------



## Mrs Magpie (Aug 19, 2011)

Oh dear. I can see his sulky bottom lip sticking out from here.


----------



## gavman (Aug 19, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Who's this pipsqueak? Never noticed him before.


so those who post here often are sad, but those who don't.....make your fucking mind up.


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 19, 2011)

gavman said:


> i think you mean australians, eh?


 Well, they have their own way of speaking, their own customs, an attitude towards alcohol, they don't integrate well... quite frankly, someone should have a word


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 19, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Read the thread, you dishonest slime. As usual, it isn't me who starts with the insults. I don't think I've ever had an exchange with you personally where you don't abandon the argument and start writing about what a rotter I am.
> 
> And what else is there but insults to fall back on when you've got a gaggle of cliche parroting mediocrities and idiots following you around insulting you?



Wrong, all you've done is hurl abuse at people. You've contributed nothing to this thread.The line that you've taken is no different to that of Starkey. Now, you're either trolling or you've got a serious mental health issue. Whatever it is, please take your unpleasantness elsewhere.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 19, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> Why is it always those who have the most posts to their names who accuse others of posting too much? Nino, VP, Steathamite etc etc. They all practically live on here. How they get time to do anything else beats me.


Playing the victim again. Grow up.


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 19, 2011)

I remember my first brush with LLETSA. A volley of abuse, exhortations for me to die and then piteous calls for a self-banning. I don't think he likes people contradicting him.

Anyways. I don't get why some people get so upset with the way people speak, be it street patois, Australian, D4, mockney... it's just language in action, isn't it? Or is it language inaction?


----------



## _angel_ (Aug 19, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> Wrong, all you've done is hurl abuse at people. You've contributed nothing to this thread.The line that you've taken is no different to that of Starkey. Now, you're either trolling or you've got a serious mental health issue. Whatever it is, please take your unpleasantness elsewhere.


You did make a remark about how he was "always on here" when your postcount is about 5 times more, to be fair.


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Aug 19, 2011)

A number of people criticised LLETSA for assuming "everything is about him". This thread has now become entirely about him.


----------



## Captain Hurrah (Aug 19, 2011)

krtek a houby said:


> I remember my first brush with LLETSA. A volley of abuse, exhortations for me to die and then piteous calls for a self-banning. I don't think he likes people contradicting him.
> 
> Anyways. I don't get why some people get so upset with the way people speak, be it street patois, Australian, D4, mockney... it's just language in action, isn't it? Or is it language inaction?



Ern will be back soon.


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 19, 2011)

Fozzie Bear said:


> A number of people criticised LLETSA for assuming "everything is about him". This thread has now become entirely about him.



Yes, very tiresome. Let's make it about me, instead


----------



## weltweit (Aug 19, 2011)

So, after all the excitement, who is willing to bet Starkey still gets invited onto Question Time?


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Aug 19, 2011)

krtek a houby said:


> Yes, very tiresome. Let's make it about me, instead



Part of me is longing for my IT Dept to catch up with the new U75 url so I am once again prevented from reading it at work.


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 19, 2011)

weltweit said:


> So, after all the excitement, who is willing to bet Starkey still gets invited onto Question Time?



Defo. He'll draw in the crowds just like popeye did.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 19, 2011)

_angel_ said:


> You did make a remark about how he was "always on here" when your postcount is about 5 times more, to be fair.



Hardly abuse though, was it? Are you doing a relay with LLETSA or something?

You haven't made a contribution to this thread either. What you've done is to ride along on LLETSA's coat tails and chip in with snide comments.


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Aug 19, 2011)

Anyway.

Starkey's been on Question Time before, from what I can remember.

He's been invisible in the past week, but I am sure he'll crop up to mount a defence when the heat has died down.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 19, 2011)

Fozzie Bear said:


> Anyway.
> 
> Starkey's been on Question Time before, from what I can remember.
> 
> He's been invisible in the past week, but I am sure he'll crop up to mount a defence when the heat has died down.


His silence is deafening. I think he realises that anything he says is going to be examined in forensic detail by his legion of opponents. Interestingly enough, the only people to come out and defend him are swivel-eyed loons like Delingpole and Toby Young.

Delingpole simply repeated Starkey's line about Lammy



> Note that what Starkey is saying here is actually pretty reasonabble. If you listened to David Lammy on the radio you could indeed very easily think that his educated, non-ethnically identifiable (and mildly effete) speaking voice belonged to a white person rather than a black person. But in Jones’s world – and that of his puppetmaster the BBC – the truth in these matters is no defence.
> http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/j...david-starkey-is-racist-then-so-is-everybody/



But what is a "white accent"? People like Starkey and Delingpole use this phrase without any thought at all. Indeed, Delingpole (and his fellow Torygraph hacks and their commenters) constantly come out with phrases like "white culture". There is no such thing as white culture anymore than there is a single "black culture".


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 19, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> In actual fact, and as I keep having to say, I did nothing other than present an argument, perhaps with a certain amount of sarcasm, that ran counter to the predictable commonplaces most others came out with. They didn't like it and started throwing insults. Why am I expected not to give it back?


Not being quite honest here, are we?
You didn't just 'present an argument', you presented it _very badly_, completely failed to substantiate it or address the glaring logical and factual holes in it that others pointed out, got called (and completely torn apart) on it handle the criticism, and kicked off with the insults.
THAT is what actually happened, and it's plain for all to see.


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 19, 2011)

Mrs Magpie said:


> Oh for fucks sake! I've been reading this thread since it started and you have just been being a complete arsehole all over the shop. It's doesn't take a massive intellect to notice your disruptiveness and aggression. As someone said earlier THIS THREAD IS NOT ABOUT YOU!


Thank you! I'm glad you've said this, because it means it's been noticed.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 19, 2011)

Here's the Daily Mail 4 days ago. They've run a vote on the matter and, predictably enough, most of their readers agree with Starkey.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...backed-furore-whites-black-culture-claim.html

Here's a sample of some of the comments



> Why should stating true, hard facts be treated as offensive or, indeed, racist ? Facts are facts. Simple. I support the comments made by Dr Starkey.
> - Garfield, Londinium, 15/8/2011 09:02







> Just because someone speaks the truth about what's going on he's called a racist, is the black police federation called racist? This 'gag' used by the eu and liberals to shut us white indigenous people up is EXACTLY why these riots happened in the first place.
> - An Englishwoman, Newcastle UK, 15/8/2011 09:00




Truth, facts...  none of these things were actually present in Starkey's rant. He simply based his narrative on his own, deep-seated cultural bigotry. When someone defended him by saying "he used rap to explore Shakespeare", he was practically frog-marched into doing that. He'd never would have thought of using rap on his own.​​


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 19, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> Delingpole simply repeated Starkey's line about Lammy


Interestingly, Davie boy - who has been getting steadily less r/w with every day he's been in opposition, and actually called on black people to 'take to the streets' to stop the cuts - is NOT HAPPY about starkey citing him, but he realises he'll gain nothing from wading in.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 19, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> Interestingly, Davie boy - who has been getting steadily less r/w with every day he's been in opposition, and actually called on black people to 'take to the streets' to stop the cuts - is NOT HAPPY about starkey citing him, but he realises he'll gain nothing from wading in.


That is interesting. Perhaps he realises that it's better to support his constituents rather risk losing them through being a total careerist wanker who repeats the same crap about 'personal responsibility'.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 19, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> I'm always accused of being bitter on here, but it's never made cear what i'm supposed to be bitter about.


It's been made perfectly clear: Life, the universe and everything.


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 19, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> That is interesting. Perhaps he realises that it's better to support his constituents rather risk losing them through being a total careerist wanker who repeats the same crap about 'personal responsibility'.


I think that's exactly it - 2010 was a wake-up call for both him and his party, and he realised how much his support had weakened in what is - truth be told - a historically rock-solid labour. He's starting to remember who his true friends are, which I think is why he turned down a shadow cabinet job. He's certainly been hammering the constituency work


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 19, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> I think that's exactly it - 2010 was a wake-up call for both him and his party, and he realised how much his support had weakened in what is - truth be told - a historically rock-solid labour. He's starting to remember who his true friends are, which I think is why he turned down a shadow cabinet job. He's certainly been hammering the constituency work



I hadn't realised he turned down a shadow cabinet job (unlike Abbott who seized it with both hands).


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 19, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> All the little idiots talking like this have watched Kidulthood.



Except that people were talking like that before Noel Clarke even had the idea for "kidulthood" back in the early 2000s, so it's doubtful that the film was an influence, even if they *have* "all" watched it.


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 19, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> I hadn't realised he turned down a shadow cabinet job (unlike Abbott who seized it with both hands).


yep; said he wanted to be free to speak out on a "wide range of issues that would arise in his constituency due to the large cuts in the public services that his constituents rely on." he's shoring up his base.


----------



## phildwyer (Aug 19, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> Thank you! I'm glad you've said this, because it means it's been noticed.



Oozıng sycophancy from every pore as usual I see.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 19, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> yep; said he wanted to be free to speak out on a "wide range of issues that would arise in his constituency due to the large cuts in the public services that his constituents rely on." he's shoring up his base.


Is he worried that a real socialist could come along and steal votes away from him? I wonder? What left parties are organising in Tottenham?


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 19, 2011)

LLETSA said:


> There's been no rebuttal, just more wind.


stop lying - again


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 19, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> Is he worried that a real socialist could come along and steal votes away from him? I wonder? What left parties are organising in Tottenham?


swappies, Socialist organiser and SP, plus the greens are getting stronger. But they're both small groups, and the community activist groups like HSG (or the anti-cuts group, HAPS) aren't likely to campaign against him; i just think he feels liberated from govt, and he's seen how much Labour are losing their core support


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 19, 2011)

Streathamite said:


> swappies, Socialist organiser and SP, plus the greens are getting stronger. But they're both small groups, and the community activist groups like HSG (or the anti-cuts group, HAPS) aren't likely to campaign against him; i just think he feels liberated from govt, and he's seen how much Labour are losing their core support


I'd like to say there's hope for him yet. I'd like to see the SP do well. The Swappies? No thanks.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 19, 2011)

What's the socialist organiser? Is that the awl?


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 19, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> What's the socialist organiser? Is that the awl?


I think it is.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 19, 2011)

i wonder what kind of response they get when they talk about iraq


----------



## _angel_ (Aug 19, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> Hardly abuse though, was it? Are you doing a relay with LLETSA or something?
> 
> You haven't made a contribution to this thread either. What you've done is to ride along on LLETSA's coat tails and chip in with snide comments.


_I_ make snide comments? 

Anyway, on topic, David Starkey is a tit, I've never liked him.


----------



## dilberto (Aug 19, 2011)

I think there must be some truthful resonance in what David Starkey said otherwise people would not be talking about it.

The effect of political correctness which allows people only to be culturally tolerant is to create a passive and submissive feminised culture, and people of that culture are likely to have little cultural self belief, young people in particular may then look to other immigrant cultures in which to believe which replaces the male element missing from their own emasculated culture which is why there is such a flourishing white "gangsta" culture in Britain today.

The reason why people wish to silence others is not because they think that they are wrong but because they fear that they might be right.


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 19, 2011)

dilberto said:


> I think there must be some truthful resonance in what David Starkey said otherwise people would not be talking about it.
> 
> The effect of political correctness which allows people only to be culturally tolerant is to create a passive and submissive feminised culture, and people of that culture are likely to have little cultural self belief, young people in particular may then look to other immigrant cultures in which to believe which replaces the male element missing from their own emasculated culture which is why there is such a flourishing white "gangsta" culture in Britain today.
> 
> The reason why people wish to silence others is not because they think that they are wrong but because they fear that they might be right.


 Explaine submissive feminised culture please


----------



## weltweit (Aug 19, 2011)

dilberto said:


> I think there must be some truthful resonance in what David Starkey said otherwise people would not be talking about it.



But what he said was patently bollocks ...

The white have become black ... what on earth does that mean ?

Lammy is white ... what on earth ?



dilberto said:


> The effect of political correctness which allows people only to be culturally tolerant is to create a passive and submissive feminised culture, and people of that culture are likely to have little cultural self belief, young people in particular may then look to other immigrant cultures in which to believe which replaces the male element missing from their own emasculated culture which is why there is such a flourishing white "gangsta" culture in Britain today.



Feminised culture, what on earth are you on about?


dilberto said:


> The reason why people wish to silence others is not because they think that they are wrong but because they fear that they might be right.



No one is silencing Starkey, he is getting more coverage than he ever did!


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Aug 19, 2011)

dilberto said:


> I think there must be some truthful resonance in what David Starkey said otherwise people would not be talking about it.
> 
> The effect of political correctness which allows people only to be culturally tolerant is to create a passive and submissive feminised culture, and people of that culture are likely to have little cultural self belief, young people in particular may then look to other immigrant cultures in which to believe which replaces the male element missing from their own emasculated culture which is why there is such a flourishing white "gangsta" culture in Britain today.
> 
> The reason why people wish to silence others is not because they think that they are wrong but because they fear that they might be right.



What aspects of our culture were not at one point a product of immigrant influences?


----------



## weltweit (Aug 19, 2011)

Fozzie Bear said:


> What aspects of our culture were not at one point a product of immigrant influences?



Somerset Cider !!


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 19, 2011)

weltweit said:


> Somerset Cider !!


 feminised cider?


----------



## weltweit (Aug 19, 2011)

krtek a houby said:


> feminised cider?



Don't get me wrong, women can drink it, if they don't mind hairs on their chests


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 19, 2011)

krtek a houby said:


> feminised cider?


perry, or pear cider as it now appears to be called


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 19, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> perry, or pear cider as it now appears to be called


Kopparberg is the nicest of them


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 19, 2011)

krtek a houby said:


> Kopparberg is the nicest of them


It's the _sweetest_. See. You've been feminised. Do you drink it with ice?

Kopparberg pear, poured from a bottle into a glass with ice in it.

Feminised cider, that is.


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Aug 19, 2011)

weltweit said:


> Somerset Cider !!



OK great! So the issue here is that the yoof have contaminated themselves with feminised ciders like Magners, and that one they are pimping hard from South Africa at the moment?

But if they had stuck to Somerset Cider, there would have been no riots?


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 19, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It's the _sweetest_. See. You've been feminised. Do you drink it with ice?


Not at all. I drink it with grit.


----------



## weltweit (Aug 19, 2011)

Fozzie Bear said:


> .. But if they had stuck to Somerset Cider, there would have been no riots?



When was the last riot in Somerset? eh ... locals too pissed usually .. or Dorset for that matter ... they just don't riot or loot ..


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Aug 19, 2011)

This: 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





Or this: 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




IT'S YOUR CHOICE, ENGLAND!


----------



## weltweit (Aug 19, 2011)

well quite !! very succinctly put Fozzie Bear


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Aug 19, 2011)

Fuck's sake, if we'd realised it was as simple as that, this whole thing could have been avoided.


----------



## butchersapron (Aug 19, 2011)

Fozzie Bear said:


> This:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Not down here it ain't.


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Aug 19, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Not down here it ain't.



Actually, that's a fair point, butchers. Bristol's history of rioting drives a horse and carriage through that whole argument. Damn.

I need Dilberto to come back to the thread an explain to me what a gwan now...


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 19, 2011)

I am puzzled by this 'feminised' argument. It appears that being raised by a single mum both feminises boys and turns them into thugs.


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 19, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I am puzzled by this 'feminised' argument. It appears that being raised by a single mum both feminises boys and turns them into thugs.


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 19, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> What's the socialist organiser? Is that the awl?


think so, but I might have the name wrong. it's so bloody difficult to keep track of them all


----------



## goldenecitrone (Aug 19, 2011)

dilberto said:


> I think there must be some truthful resonance in what David Starkey said otherwise people would not be talking about it.
> 
> The effect of political correctness which allows people only to be culturally tolerant is to create a passive and submissive feminised culture, and people of that culture are likely to have little cultural self belief, young people in particular may then look to other immigrant cultures in which to believe which replaces the male element missing from their own emasculated culture which is why there is such a flourishing white "gangsta" culture in Britain today.



I guess Obama does have a lot to answer for. And that would also explain the flood of wannabe cowboy culture when Bush was President. Hopefully a female President will remasculate us all again.


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 19, 2011)

dilberto said:


> I think there must be some truthful resonance in what David Starkey said otherwise people would not be talking about it.
> 
> The effect of political correctness which allows people only to be culturally tolerant is to create a passive and submissive feminised culture, and people of that culture are likely to have little cultural self belief, young people in particular may then look to other immigrant cultures in which to believe which replaces the male element missing from their own emasculated culture which is why there is such a flourishing white "gangsta" culture in Britain today.
> The reason why people wish to silence others is not because they think that they are wrong but because they fear that they might be right.


OK, I'll do you a favour here, I'll pretend you are a thinking, intelliigent person, rather than a trolling fuckwit with a bogbrush for a brain: What the FUCK is a 'feminised culture', in what way should we want to be 'culturally intolerant', and towards whom or what, and how on earth did this mythical wave of 'political correctness' get us to that point.
explain your post please, or i'll assume you uncritically C&Ped this rubbish from some r/w columnist - and respond accordingly


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 19, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I am puzzled by this 'feminised' argument. It appears that being raised by a single mum both feminises boys and turns them into thugs.


YOU'RE puzzled? I _was_ raised by a single mum, and I'm bloody _baffled_.


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Aug 19, 2011)

... waiting for our new chum to mention 'cultural marxism' ...


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 19, 2011)

What is cultural marxism? I've not heard that particular gem before.


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 19, 2011)

actually, i'm intrigued too


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Aug 19, 2011)

See e.g. http://www.academia.org/the-origins-of-political-correctness/


----------



## Streathamite (Aug 19, 2011)

Fozzie Bear said:


> I need Dilberto to come back to the thread an explain to me what a gwan now...


oo-arrr boompaclaat?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 19, 2011)

Bernie Gunther said:


> See e.g. http://www.academia.org/the-origins-of-political-correctness/


Sorry, got about a third of the way through that and glazed over. How peculiar.


----------



## _angel_ (Aug 19, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I am puzzled by this 'feminised' argument. It appears that being raised by a single mum both feminises boys and turns them into thugs.



I think I mentioned this before. Surely if boys are being "feminized" they are going to be a bit girly and definitely not out starting riots?


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Aug 19, 2011)

_angel_ said:


> I think I mentioned this before. Surely if boys are being "feminized" they are going to be a bit girly and definitely not out starting riots?



I think the idea is that they are reacting *against* being feminised by embracing the ideals expressed by Ice-T in 'Cop Killer' to the detriment of society. Or something.


----------



## _angel_ (Aug 19, 2011)

Bernie Gunther said:


> I think the idea is that they are reacting against being feminised by embracing the ideals expressed by Ice-T in 'Cop Killer' to the detriment of society. Or something.


It's a bollocks argument whichever way you look at it. Why is it only boys that are presumed to need fathers, and not girls. Are girls brought up by a single Dad "masculinized".
Nobody cares about that, it just has to be the fault of women (despite the fact the maj of rioters are male)


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 19, 2011)

Bernie Gunther said:


> I think the idea is that they are reacting *against* being feminised by embracing the ideals expressed by Ice-T in 'Cop Killer' to the detriment of society. Or something.


Good grief. Don't ditch the idea in the face of the evidence, just add layer upon layer of modification!


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 19, 2011)

_angel_ said:


> It's a bollocks argument whichever way you look at it.


It absolutely is. That doesn't stop people who should know better from going on about it, though. Single mums are the unthinking person's catch-all scapegoat, it seems to me, regardless of any actual evidence to the contrary.

Same with the contradictory nonsense whereby the same person will bemoan the culture of the 'latchkey' kid one day, then berate single mums for not working the next.
What it really comes down to, it seems to me, is an attack on the poor. It isn't single mums like Diane Abbott, for instance who are being blamed of here.

Attack poor women! They're to blame.


----------



## Lock&Light (Aug 19, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Attack poor women! They're to blame.



I don't agree with the argument, but isn't the blame being put on the absent fathers?


----------



## _angel_ (Aug 19, 2011)

Lock&Light said:


> I don't agree with the argument, but isn't the blame being put on the absent fathers?


They get mentioned, but usually the mo is just to slag women off.
Anyway, does anyone actually even know that all/ most rioters are from lone parent homes... and what about those that were older, do we blame their parents as well?


----------



## weltweit (Aug 19, 2011)

Lock&Light said:


> I don't agree with the argument, but isn't the blame being put on the absent fathers?



yes .. and that is a liberty

A large number of absent fathers bear no blame, their women left them!


----------



## weltweit (Aug 19, 2011)

_angel_ said:


> They get mentioned, but usually the mo is just to slag women off.
> Anyway, does anyone actually even know that all/ most rioters are from lone parent homes... and what about those that were older, do we blame their parents as well?



I don't think anyone knows, they are just fishing for opportunities to slag off their pet hates.

What I wish for everyone who blames single dads or single mums, for them to experience marriage break up and know what actually happens and that usually No One is to blame!


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 19, 2011)

weltweit said:


> yes .. and that is a liberty
> 
> A large number of absent fathers bear no blame, their women left them!


You miss the point. The whole thing's a liberty. Sometimes it is far better for the kids that parents who have come to despise each other should split up. Human relations and relationships are complicated, messy, imperfect things. And great kids can emerge from all kinds of family models.


----------



## weltweit (Aug 19, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> You miss the point. The whole thing's a liberty. Sometimes it is far better for the kids that parents who have come to despise each other should split up. Human relations and relationships are complicated, messy, imperfect things. And great kids can emerge from all kinds of family models.



Oh, ok that is a slightly different point to the one I was referring to... but you are quite right, normal balanced humans emerge from all kinds of parenting methods. I am sure there are even some statistics to back that line up.


----------



## dylans (Aug 19, 2011)

weltweit said:


> I don't think anyone knows, they are just fishing for opportunities to slag off their pet hates.
> 
> What I wish for everyone who blames single dads or single mums, for them to experience marriage break up and know what actually happens and that usually No One is to blame!


Or to assume that single parent families are always the result of divorce.


----------



## weltweit (Aug 19, 2011)

dylans said:


> Or to assume that single parent families are always the result of divorce.



Well indeed. There can be many reasons behind single parent families, certainly.

I for example am seperated from my ex and we share our child between us, we both care a lot that he spends a lot of time with both his parents. Are we a single parent family? I suppose in the view of some we are.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 19, 2011)

dylans said:


> Or to assume that single parent families are always the result of divorce.


And that too, of course. Whichever way you look at it, as angel says, attacking single parents is a disgraceful thing to do.


----------



## dylans (Aug 19, 2011)

weltweit said:


> Well indeed. There can be many reasons behind single parent families, certainly.
> 
> I for example am seperated from my ex and we share our child between us, we both care a lot that he spends a lot of time with both his parents. Are we a single parent family? I suppose in the view of some we are.


I've been a single dad since my son lost his mom when he was 18 months old. (he's 11 now) Of course, I feel he has lost someone valuable in his life (as have I) but that's something out of our control. We play with the cards we are dealt. I am all he has and have to make up for the loss of his mom. That has made us very very close. Our family is just the two of us but we are a good family with lots of love. I hate it when people assume that we are somehow disfunctional or of less quality than a two parent family. I know lots of two parent families that have awful relationships with their children and I look at my son and think we are both very lucky to have each other. It's more than enough for us.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 19, 2011)

fwiw, the evidence shows that a kid's development depends very much on the quality of their bonding with a primary carer. We haven't actually evolved to be dependent on two parents. One parent who really loves you is better than a thousand who don't.


----------



## weltweit (Aug 19, 2011)

dylans said:


> I've been a single dad since my son lost his mom when he was 18 months old. (he's 11 now) Of course, I feel he has lost someone valuable in his life (as have I) but that's something out of our control. We play with the cards we are dealt. I am all he has and have to make up for the loss of his mom. That has made us very very close. Our family is just the two of us but we are a good family with lots of love. I hate it when people assume that we are somehow disfunctional or of less quality than a two parent family. I know lots of two parent families that have awful relationships with their children and I look at my son and think we are both very lucky to have each other. It's more than enough for us.



I am glad it is working out for you dylans. My lad is now 12 and fast becoming a teenager, he is a good kid, I am never more content than when I am spending time with him.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 19, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> But what is a "white accent"? People like Starkey and Delingpole use this phrase without any thought at all. Indeed, Delingpole (and his fellow Torygraph hacks and their commenters) constantly come out with phrases like "white culture". There is no such thing as white culture anymore than there is a single "black culture".



It means that to some people the most 'important' thing about David Lammy is the colour of his skin,  that he and others like him will never be accepted, also that those people will always hold skin colour as the _mark and measure_ of the person they are talking about.


----------



## audiotech (Aug 19, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Sorry, got about a third of the way through that and glazed over. How peculiar.



Not peculiar at all:




> How does all of this stuff flood in here? How does it flood into our universities, and indeed into our lives today? The members of the Frankfurt School are Marxist, they are also, to a man, Jewish.



Ring any bells?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 19, 2011)

dilberto said:


> I think there must be some truthful resonance in what David Starkey said otherwise people would not be talking about it.
> 
> The effect of political correctness which allows people only to be culturally tolerant is to create a passive and submissive feminised culture, and people of that culture are likely to have little cultural self belief, young people in particular may then look to other immigrant cultures in which to believe which replaces the male element missing from their own emasculated culture which is why there is such a flourishing white "gangsta" culture in Britain today.



Are people brought up in "politically correct" cultures? I haven't noticed that the kids on my estate are any more circumspect about being outrageously "politically-incorrect" than I was when I was growing up, way back in the 1970s - still the same smirky jokes about females, still the same race-related banter and remarks about poofs. "Political correctness" doesn't seem to have made much difference down on the street.

As for your claim that there's a flourishing "white gangsta" culture, please elucidate.

If you can.



> The reason why people wish to silence others is not because they think that they are wrong but because they fear that they might be right.



Well, you would say that, wouldn't you? It blocks off the possibility of anyone disagreeing with you without you being able to accuse them of political correctness in return. Straight copy from Littlejohn, that one.[/quote]


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 19, 2011)

audiotech said:


> Ring any bells?


No, can't say it does.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 19, 2011)

krtek a houby said:


> Explaine submissive feminised culture please



He's about as likely to be able to as a politician would be to explain honour and decency.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 19, 2011)

Fozzie Bear said:


> What aspects of our culture were not at one point a product of immigrant influences?



Not a fucking shred of it. We're an "island race" who plundered and traded across the world. The external and immigrant influences on our culture are so multifarious and many of them massively long-standing that it'd be impossible to enumerate them. We're the sum of our history, and anyone who doesn't acknowledge that is frankly an idiot.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 19, 2011)

Fozzie Bear said:


> Actually, that's a fair point, butchers. Bristol's history of rioting drives a horse and carriage through that whole argument. Damn.



They don't like toll bridges down in Brizzle.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 19, 2011)

weltweit said:


> yes .. and that is a liberty
> 
> A large number of absent fathers bear no blame, their women left them!



Their women? Did they own them, then?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 19, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> It means that to some people the most 'important' thing about David Lammy is the colour of his skin, that he and others like him will never be accepted, also that those people will always hold skin colour as the _mark and measure_ of the person they are talking about.



Which is frankly ridiculous. You judge a person on what they say and do, not on their skin's melanin content.

Okay, by my measures I'd still make Lammy a new Labourist wanker, but whether he was a black new labourist wanker or a white new labourist wanker would be irrelevant to him being a wanker.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 19, 2011)

audiotech said:


> Not peculiar at all:
> 
> Ring any bells?



Plenty.

It's quite possible that many of those that rant about "political correctness" aren't really aware of the genesis of some of the "home truths" they like to disseminate.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 19, 2011)

I thought PC originated in US universities - the term, at least. Is that quote from a particular person? I admit that particular brand of anti-Semitic nonsense had passed me by.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 19, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> *I thought PC originated in US universities - the term, at least.* Is that quote from a particular person? I admit that particular brand of anti-Semitic nonsense had passed me by.



It did as far as I am aware. How it is popularly used now though for me reflects the hijacking of a term/concept that was coined to represent 'respect', but is now used to 'disrespect/ridicule' those who have some, respect.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 19, 2011)

I've always hated the term, even if some good changes have been brought about by people using it.

It fits with the US culture of rights, which is a little different from ours. PC extended to language the idea that people had rights in terms of the way they were spoken to or about. But the problem with this is that, in the US at least, these are the only kind of rights that can be expected: you have these energetically protected rights laid out for you, but beyond 'respecting your rights', it seems that others have no further obligation towards you. It also turns our everyday relations with each other into something that is simply rules-based. Not PC - well why is there a 'P' there? It smacks of 'it may be alright to say that in other circumstances, but in these places it is not'.


----------



## dilberto (Aug 19, 2011)

A "Submissive feminised" culture is one which is insufficiently aggressive in defending its own interests and survival, it is overly tolerant.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 19, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I thought PC originated in US universities - the term, at least.



It did, and it meant something somewhat different.



> Is that quote from a particular person? I admit that particular brand of anti-Semitic nonsense had passed me by.



The thing is, it can be taken two ways: One is directly anti-Semitic, the other is "those academic Jews, they were all commie Marxist socialist types", which is directly anti-left, but "only" glancingly anti-Semitic. Most of your conservative types will appeal that they mean only the latter, but really their acceptance of it at all shows that they mean the former.

IIRC the person who actually said it was William Lind. One of those talking heads who's connected to just about every rightwing thinktank on the eastern seaboard of the US.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 19, 2011)

dilberto said:


> A "Submissive feminised" culture is one which is insufficiently aggressive in defending its own interests and survival, it is overly tolerant.



So what you want is an aggressively defended culture that isn't overly-tolerant?

In other words a static culture protected by, what, legislation? Some kind of template as to what defines "British culture"?


----------



## weltweit (Aug 20, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Their women? Did they own them, then?



That was just unfortunate wording on my part. Just to be clear - Men don't own women at least not in Britain.


----------



## Lock&Light (Aug 20, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> He's about as likely to be able to as a politician would be to explain honour and decency.



That is an unusualy stupid comment. Not the first time, panda, but unusual nevertheless.


----------



## Orang Utan (Aug 20, 2011)

*YOU ARE ALL A BUNCH OF SWAGGERING CUNTS*


----------



## Lock&Light (Aug 20, 2011)

Piss off, Orang.


----------



## gavman (Aug 20, 2011)

i


weltweit said:


> So, after all the excitement, who is willing to bet Starkey still gets invited onto Question Time?


 i would say not


----------



## weltweit (Aug 20, 2011)

gavman said:


> i
> 
> i would say not



What you mean you would not bet? or he would not get back on?

I reckon he will be back on - all prim and puffed up and full of himself like nothing happenned.


----------



## gavman (Aug 20, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> Here's the Daily Mail 4 days ago. They've run a vote on the matter and, predictably enough, most of their readers agree with Starkey.
> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...backed-furore-whites-black-culture-claim.html
> 
> Here's a sample of some of the comments
> ...


that's most illuminating. i didn't watch the series and was most surprised that the ads implied he had made a breakthrough, over and above the other celeb teachers


----------



## gavman (Aug 20, 2011)

weltweit said:


> What you mean you would not bet? or he would not get back on?
> 
> I reckon he will be back on - all prim and puffed up and full of himself like nothing happenned.


i genuinely think the bbc was surprised by what he said. perhaps if he establishes a constituency that agrees with him, but i suspect he has received enough sharp criticism to shut him up. as big a twat as he is, i don't think he wants to appoint himself leader of the moral majority after the response to his appearance


----------



## goldenecitrone (Aug 20, 2011)

dilberto said:


> A "Submissive feminised" culture is one which is insufficiently aggressive in defending its own interests and survival, it is overly tolerant.



That would explain why women as a gender died out over 100,000 years ago.


----------



## flutterbye (Aug 20, 2011)

Orang Utan said:


> *YOU ARE ALL A BUNCH OF SWAGGERING CUNTS*



I check the time I think Mr. Utan has had a few jars, I smile to myself.


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Aug 20, 2011)

Apparently Starkey has mounted a defence in today's Telegraph.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Aug 20, 2011)

And here - http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/aug/20/david-starkey-defends-newsnight-comment


----------



## Lo Siento. (Aug 20, 2011)

dilberto said:


> A "Submissive feminised" culture is one which is insufficiently aggressive in defending its own interests and survival, it is overly tolerant.


which culture is mine, and in what sense does it have shared "interests"?


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 20, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> It means that to some people the most 'important' thing about David Lammy is the colour of his skin, that he and others like him will never be accepted, also that those people will always hold skin colour as the _mark and measure_ of the person they are talking about.



Indeed. There are some folk (all you need to do is read the comments on Telegraph blogs) who hold fast to this notion that anyone with a dark skin is 'uncivilised'. Anyone who adopts what appears to be a 'white' accent - in other words the accent of the dominant culture (RP or similar) - has therefore been 'civilised' by the dominant culture. If I closed my eyes and listened to Lammy, I'd just think he was a twat.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 20, 2011)

Mr.Bishie said:


> And here - http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/aug/20/david-starkey-defends-newsnight-comment



This is the most telling paragraph



> Admitting that friends agreed his greatest error was mentioning the politician Enoch Powell, whose 1968 rivers of blood speech attacked immigration, Starkey added that part of the legacy of the reaction to Powell had been "an enforced silence on the matter of race".



Notice that he admits quoting Powell was an "error" but he then undoes that admission by claiming that Powell was right all along by saying there has been "an enforced silence on the matter of race".

it's taken him over a week to formulate his response but he really needn't have bothered. In the Telegraph he says,



> Unfortunately, the speech and still more the reaction to it, are also central to any proper understanding of our present discontents. For Powell’s views were popular at the time and the London dockers marched in his support. The reaction of the liberal elites in both the Labour and Tory parties, who had just driven Powell into the wilderness, was unanimous: the white working class could never be trusted on race again.
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...ulture...-and-this-is-only-the-beginning.html



Here he's trying to claim that because Powell's view were popular among white working class people then we should roll back time and embrace Powell as a 'visionary'.

He returns to Powell towards the end of the article,


> But the times have changed. Powell had to prophesy his “Tiber foaming with blood”. We, on the other hand, have already experienced the fires of Tottenham and Croydon. Moreover, the public mood is different from the acquiescent and deferential electorate of the Sixties. We are undeceived. We are tired of being cheated and lied to by bankers and MPs and some sections of the press.



What he appears to be saying here is that we've had the metaphorical "Tiber foaming with blood" in the form of fires and rioting.

This is a very poor defence from someone who claims to be an academic. In spite of his claims to the contrary, Starkey is a racist.

It isn't just black people that Starkey has a problem with. He also has serious issues with the Celtic nations.

But here's a comment from "spearofodin". I think we can accept that this commenter is fash. The name gives it away.



> spearofodin
> 15 minutes ago
> Recommended by
> 5 people
> ...


----------



## Lo Siento. (Aug 20, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> Indeed. There are some folk (all you need to do is read the comments on Telegraph blogs) who hold fast to this notion that anyone with a dark skin is 'uncivilised'. Anyone who adopts what appears to be a 'white' accent - in other words the accent of the dominant culture (RP or similar) - has therefore been 'civilised' by the dominant culture. If I closed my eyes and listened to Lammy, I'd just think he was a twat.


It's also just hilarious (ridiculous) that a historian would imagine that East Londoners (East Londoners ffs!) didn't speak non-standard English before mass immigration started, and that their dialect wasn't also considered subversive.

To think such a thing, you'd have to either very ignorant or very racist.


----------



## Lo Siento. (Aug 20, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> Notice that he admits quoting Powell was an "error" but he then undoes that admission by claiming that Powell was right all along by saying there has been "an enforced silence on the matter of race".


We never fucking stop talking about it. What these people call an "enforced silence" on it, is just people calling him on being a racist cunt.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 20, 2011)

Lo Siento. said:


> It's also just hilarious (ridiculous) that a historian would imagine that East Londoners (East Londoners ffs!) didn't speak non-standard English before mass immigration started, and that their dialect wasn't also considered subversive.
> 
> To think such a thing, you'd have to either very ignorant or very racist.



Yep, the same goes for many other local accents and dialects around the country.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 20, 2011)

Lo Siento. said:


> We never fucking stop talking about it. What these people an "enforced silence" on it, is just people calling him on being a racist cunt.



Quite, if it isn't the left talking about it, it's the right making noises about how it wants to scrap the Human Rights Act or the Human Rights & Equalities Commission because it feels the market will 'iron' out the wrinkles. It's balls of course.


----------



## Gramsci (Aug 20, 2011)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...ulture...-and-this-is-only-the-beginning.html

Starkey is a conservative historian. His defence in Telegraph is that he wants all races to join the "National Story". That the areas that did not have rights were ones which had a sense of community that cut across races and classes. This is the notion beloved of conservative historians of a society where everyone knows there place. Not surprising coming from an historian of monarchy.

A telling bit in the Newsnight piece was when Owen Jones asked Starkey that if he thought that the recent trouble at the student fees protests was allowable. As Starkey had just been going on about proper riots were where symbols of authority were attacked. ( The students attacked Tory HQ). Starkey dismissed this by saying people dont have a human right to riot.

Those on the right do not want any kind of opposition on the streets. Its in practise irrelevant whether its due to "gangsta" influence. To be consistant Starkey should have said why he thinks rioting is not part of the "National Story".

Rioting , as Starkey should know, is just as much a part of the "National Story" as many other parts of British/ English history. See EP Thompson.


----------



## Poo Flakes (Aug 20, 2011)

David Starkey said:
			
		

> We will not continue, I think, to tolerate being lied to and cheated in the matter of race. Instead of “not in front of the children”, we want honesty



This is what I hate about Starkey.  He really thinks that he some sort of maverick pioneer speaking out against the injustices of the state, making a stand against the powers at be, in order to literally save England. From this language you get the impression he really believes that his actions are on a par with MPs speaking in Kurdish in the Turkish parliament, leaking documents from the Pentagon, or setting fire to himself in front of a state building in Tibet when he is just repeating Daily Mail prejudices.  What a colossal tit.




			
				David Starkey said:
			
		

> For the other pernicious legacy of the reaction to Powell has been an enforced silence on the matter of race. The subject has become unmentionable, by whites at any rate. And any breach has been punished by ostracism and worse.



A chance to redeem yourself on both Radio 5 and the Telegraph.  This is the worst kind of ostracism and worse.  What a pathetic, little man.


----------



## Gramsci (Aug 20, 2011)

http://owenjones.org/

good piece on Owen Jones blog about riots


----------



## Gramsci (Aug 20, 2011)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...ulture...-and-this-is-only-the-beginning.html

"But how, then, to explain the black educationalists Tony Sewell and Katharine Birbalsingh defending the substance of my comments on “gangsta” culture"

The above quote from Starkeys piece aroused my curiousity. So I checked Birbalsinghs Telegraph blog. Here is piece from her entitled  "David Starkey is wrong, plain and simple"

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/k...0907/david-starkey-is-wrong-plain-and-simple/

Kate is hardly a lefty but she clearly disagrees with Starkey. Did Starkey not think that readers of his piece would not check his referances?


----------



## Orang Utan (Aug 20, 2011)

flutterbye said:


> I check the time I think Mr. Utan has had a few jars, I smile to myself.


in the cold sober light of day, i heartily endorse and reinforce my earlier comment


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 20, 2011)

Orang Utan said:


> in the cold sober light of day, i heartily endorse and reinforce my earlier comment


while the light of day may be cold and sober i doubt you are.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 20, 2011)

Gramsci said:


> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...ulture...-and-this-is-only-the-beginning.html
> 
> "But how, then, to explain the black educationalists Tony Sewell and Katharine Birbalsingh defending the substance of my comments on “gangsta” culture"
> 
> ...



Anyone going to comment oin this massive oversight and misrepresentation of Kate's opinions on Starkey's part on the torygraph comments page?


----------



## Orang Utan (Aug 20, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> while the light of day may be cold and sober i doubt you are.


it's 2pm, course i am


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 20, 2011)

Orang Utan said:


> it's 2pm, course i am


it doesn't follow from it being 2pm that you are sober. pubs have been open since 7am and offies since at least 8am.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 20, 2011)

Gramsci said:


> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...ulture...-and-this-is-only-the-beginning.html
> 
> Starkey is a conservative historian. His defence in Telegraph is that he wants all races to join the "National Story". That the areas that did not have rights were ones which had a sense of community that cut across races and classes. This is the notion beloved of conservative historians of a society where everyone knows there place. Not surprising coming from an historian of monarchy.
> 
> ...



Yes, the "National Story". I suspect that's a little like Douglas Murray's ideas for leitkultur. Culture that has to be imposed on people isn't organic and has to be constructed from scraps of historical narrative and tales of derring do.

I reckon EP Thompson is like garlic to a vampire in Starkey's case.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 20, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> Anyone going to comment oin this massive oversight and misrepresentation of Kate's opinions on Starkey's part on the torygraph comments page?



I scratched my head when I read that, because it's clear, for all her other faults, that KB wasn't defending Starkey, she rejected what he had to say.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 20, 2011)

Gramsci said:


> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...ulture...-and-this-is-only-the-beginning.html
> 
> "But how, then, to explain the black educationalists Tony Sewell and Katharine Birbalsingh defending the substance of my comments on “gangsta” culture"
> 
> ...



I think that partly explains why Starkey left academia. The very thought of having his papers peer-reviewed must have had him bricking it.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 20, 2011)

He seems wholly confused over Powell. Powell was wrong. If anything, these riots only serve prove just how wrong he was.

I genuinely don't understand why Starkey is even bringing up Powell.


----------



## Orang Utan (Aug 20, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> it doesn't follow from it being 2pm that you are sober. pubs have been open since 7am and offies since at least 8am.


who would be drunk so early though? only an alky would be drunk at that time, or maybe someone who was still partying from the night before. i am neither.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 20, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> He seems wholly confused over Powell. Powell was wrong. If anything, these riots only serve prove just how wrong he was.
> 
> I genuinely don't understand why Starkey is even bringing up Powell.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 20, 2011)

I'm trying to understand this from a starting point that Starkey is genuine in his views. He seems to be. But his argument is horribly confused and incoherent.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 20, 2011)

Orang Utan said:


> who would be drunk so early though? only an alky would be drunk at that time, or maybe someone who was still partying from the night before. i am neither.


arguing on this emotional basis does your position no favours. as i have pointed out, for all i know you could have been drinking in a wetherspoons since 7 this morning, or huddled in a bus shelter since 8 clutching a can of skol super in a brown paper bag - judging from your increasingly shrill comments i wouldn't be surprised if drink had been taken in some quantity this morning.


----------



## Orang Utan (Aug 20, 2011)

well i haven't. hence my post earlier about the cold sober light of day.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 20, 2011)

Orang Utan said:


> well i haven't. hence my post earlier about the cold sober light of day.


i am more concerned about your sobriety than about the sobriety of today's light.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 20, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I'm trying to understand this from a starting point that Starkey is genuine in his views. He seems to be. But his argument is horribly confused and incoherent.


----------



## Orang Utan (Aug 20, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> i am more concerned about your sobriety than about the sobriety of today's light.


you have nothing to worry about. why are you being such a prick?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 20, 2011)

The comments under that article are incredible. I know I shouldn't read the speek you're branes nonsense in comments but this is the Telegraph not the Mail, and they are all, without exception, expressing horrible racist views.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 20, 2011)

Orang Utan said:


> *YOU ARE ALL A BUNCH OF SWAGGERING CUNTS*


why am i being such a prick? because you, claiming to be sober, are endorsing the sentiment quoted posted when you were by all accounts drunk.


----------



## Orang Utan (Aug 20, 2011)

they make for very depressing reading.


----------



## Orang Utan (Aug 20, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> why am i being such a prick? because you, claiming to be sober, are endorsing the sentiment quoted posted when you were by all accounts drunk.


aye, well it's true innit. internet silliness. i include myself in this sweeping assessment of message board posters.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 20, 2011)

Orang Utan said:


> they make for very depressing reading.


That that kind of comment would be posted is inevitable. That there is nobody attacking them is what depresses me.


----------



## Gramsci (Aug 20, 2011)

Rutita1 said:


> Anyone going to comment oin this massive oversight and misrepresentation of Kate's opinions on Starkey's part on the torygraph comments page?



Its so glaringly obvious that it left me open mouthed. When I checked her blog I thought she might in some way agree with him. She does not. 

Im not one of her fans. She is trying to set up a "Free School" in Lambeth ( thread on Brixton section). So Ive checked her blog before. Mostly its right wing and annoying.

Her piece on Starkey I thought was surprisingly good. And I say that as someone who disagrees with her on education.

She has written a follow up piece as well:


http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/k...ides-of-the-argument-would-take-a-chill-pill/

Once again, I would strongly urge people of all colours to analyse the facts. Don’t just jump in a camp and blindly argue for it. What Starkey said was inaccurate, but I respect the fact that he said it. Life is all about changing one’s mind on things

And I agree. Starkey opened up a debate. He is wrong. But can be argued against for being poor history.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 20, 2011)

Gramsci said:


> And I agree. Starkey opened up a debate. He is wrong. But can be argued against for being poor history.


His comments on these riots have done nothing to further debate - they have done the opposite, holding the real debate back while you deal with the misconceptions and prejudices of the likes of Starkey.


----------



## Gramsci (Aug 20, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> His comments on these riots have done nothing to further debate - they have done the opposite, holding the real debate back while you deal with the misconceptions and prejudices of the likes of Starkey.



Thats because this is what this thread is about. Ive been on other threads ( about the riots in Brixton- my patch) where ive raised other issues re the riots.Check my posts.

Mostly spent my time posting to object to the categorisation of the riots as mindless criminality.

History is important. Starkey cannot just be dismissed. His arguments need to be refuted. Not to be refused to be engaged with.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 20, 2011)

I'm not talking about this thread in particular. As an example, how much airtime did the other two guests on Newsnight get? They surely will have had more to say, but could not - with what little time they had to speak, they had to spend it confronting Starkey's misconceptions.

I'm not saying his arguments don't need to be refuted, but I do dispute the idea that he is opening up anything.


----------



## Gramsci (Aug 20, 2011)

I get your point now. I think Starkey views dont gain a lot of followers. His mention of Enochs influence on sections of the working class shows his lack of it. Peoples attitudes have moved on. No one listens to a patrician Tory like they might have done back in the 60s. I can can hardly see Starkey feeling at home addressing the likes of the EDL. Much to common for him.

What is interesting is that not so long ago it was the creeping "Islamicisation" and "Londonstan" that were the bugbears of the right. The focus has suddenly gone back to Afro Carribeans.

What concerns me more is the general view that this is mindless criminality. That the riots in the 80s were different. But there is no excuse for rioting now.

Owen Jones has written good piece on his blog looking at the economic reasons for the riots.

"As the cuts hit, mass unemployment remains and even deepens, and the real income of the poor continues to drop, Britain’s divided society threatens to fracture even further. The August riots were frightening. But the disaffection that fuelled them is set to get worse. Social chaos is not inevitable in the coming years. But, after last week’s events, only a fool would rule it out."

http://owenjones.org/


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 20, 2011)

You are right that we shouldn't overestimate his influence. And I agree that the general view of 'mindless criminality' is worrying.

At least Owen Jones will have got some new readers out of it, I suppose. What depresses me a little is that to me, he's only stating the blindingly obvious, yet it still needs to be said and said again.


----------



## Gramsci (Aug 20, 2011)

Daily Mash:

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/...ring-jamaican-patois-at-the-ivy-201108154192/


----------



## Brainaddict (Aug 20, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> You are right that we shouldn't overestimate his influence. And I agree that the general view of 'mindless criminality' is worrying.
> 
> At least Owen Jones will have got some new readers out of it, I suppose. What depresses me a little is that to me, he's only stating the blindingly obvious, yet it still needs to be said and said again.


I think its related to a wider blindness to structure. People instinctively individualise everything so want to pin the riots on errors by individuals. We're not taught to think about social structure so, while you can get people to see it, their brains quickly revert back to seeing just individuals.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 21, 2011)

Brainaddict said:


> I think its related to a wider blindness to structure. People instinctively individualise everything so want to pin the riots on errors by individuals. We're not taught to think about social structure so, while you can get people to see it, their brains quickly revert back to seeing just individuals.


i'm not so sure. people seem quite happy to generalise about 'the americans', 'the germans', 'the japanese' etc. equally, people are often happy to label all scousers as lazy, feckless thieves or man u supporters as typically those with no connection to manchester at all. i don't think people do instinctively 'individualise' things, i think that the media in pursuing its own agenda - its pro-state agenda - individualises things so that people cannot see the wider picture. however, the repetition of certain stories, notably that of the reeves store in croydon or the barber in tottenham (i think), suggests there is less damage to small businesses as these few tales have been harped on and on about. the sad deaths of the three men up north have been brought in to smear everyone out on riots as vicious and violent thugs, when i have seen scant details of the number people injured by rioters.

the incessant repetition of these few cases, sad though they may be, reduces peoples' idea of the riots, the rioters, and the causes of the riots, to individual cases which many people may be appalled by.

it is also i think one stick which will be used to damn demonstrators in the future, that they are at least akin to vicious anti-social thugs who would burn your house down with you in it at the least provocation.


----------



## treelover (Aug 21, 2011)

Gramsci said

'Peoples attitudes have moved on. No one listens to a patrician Tory like they might have done back in the 60s. I can can hardly see Starkey feeling at home addressing the likes of the EDL. Much to common for him.'

Starkey is from a very poor background and lived on a rough council estate in his youth, it has clearly affected him and unlike some for whom it is a badge of honour, like say Bryan Ferry he has done everything he can to distance himself from it, in fact I thought he was from an old titled family for some time...


----------



## Poo Flakes (Aug 21, 2011)

_Are you Starkey in disguise?_


----------



## audiotech (Aug 22, 2011)

Starkey bringing Powell into the equation is misplaced at this time anyway, as Powell's original speech was prompted by events that had happened in the US, involving the Black Panthers and other radical groups. Also, the growth of the civil rights movement there. The motives behind Powell's speech was to stem the possibility of the growth of similar movements here.


----------



## Gramsci (Aug 22, 2011)

treelover said:


> Gramsci said
> 
> 'Peoples attitudes have moved on. No one listens to a patrician Tory like they might have done back in the 60s. I can can hardly see Starkey feeling at home addressing the likes of the EDL. Much to common for him.'
> 
> Starkey is from a very poor background and lived on a rough council estate in his youth, it has clearly affected him and unlike some for whom it is a badge of honour, like say Bryan Ferry he has done everything he can to distance himself from it, in fact I thought he was from an old titled family for some time...



I knew this when I wrote the post. Starkey re invented himself- ive heard him say as much. He is more of a radical right winger than a traditional Tory. Whilst that might explain a lot it does not mean that what he says is right or is good history.


----------



## nino_savatte (Aug 22, 2011)

treelover said:


> Gramsci said
> 
> 'Peoples attitudes have moved on. No one listens to a patrician Tory like they might have done back in the 60s. I can can hardly see Starkey feeling at home addressing the likes of the EDL. Much to common for him.'
> 
> Starkey is from a very poor background and lived on a rough council estate in his youth, it has clearly affected him and unlike some for whom it is a badge of honour, like say Bryan Ferry he has done everything he can to distance himself from it, in fact I thought he was from an old titled family for some time...


Starkey is what could be described as a social climber and by that, I don't mean someone who's moved up the social ladder for one reason or another. I mean it in the sense that, while admitting he comes from a poor background, has taken deliberate steps to distance himself from his roots; one of which is to give the impression of that he is part of the landed gentry. He is full of class self-loathing and he finds his roots embarrassing. In some sense, he's used Tudor history as a place to escape to. People knew their place in Tudor times.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 22, 2011)

The ironic thing is that if he had his way there wouldn't be too many other david starkeys around then.


----------



## butchersapron (Aug 22, 2011)

Exactly as he'd like it.


----------



## Maidmarian (Aug 22, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Exactly as he'd like it.



Yep --- pulling the ladder back up behind him.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 22, 2011)

Maidmarian said:


> Yep --- pulling the ladder back up behind him.



It's a recurrent _motif_ in the behaviour of a significant minority of his generation, as with Blair's.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Aug 23, 2011)

> *David Starkey Uncut: A rebuttal of Starkeys new defensive Telegraph piece*
> 
> *Anna Hedge deconstructs Starkeys follow up piece in the Telegraph in which he reinforces the opinions he expressed on BBC's Newsnight that were considered by many as 'racist'*
> 
> ...



Continued here:

http://postdesk.com/blog/david-starkey-uncut-a-rebuttal-of-starkeys-telegraph-piece

Starkey and his arguments get rightly chewed up and spat out for the _poor excuse of anything healthy_, unpallatably racist crap that they are!


----------



## elbows (Oct 21, 2011)

I thought it may be of some vague interest to compare what was said during the Starkey uproar with this piece that explores teenagers reinventing language, looked at from the angle of trying to write authentic scripts for tv & film:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13445487


----------



## ska invita (Oct 22, 2011)

"Starkey then engages in a traditional rural pastime much loved by beleaguered current affairs panellists: the erection of Ye Olde Straw Man."

 pretty funny


----------



## Pinette (Oct 23, 2011)

Gramsci said:


> I knew this when I wrote the post. Starkey re invented himself- ive heard him say as much. He is more of a radical right winger than a traditional Tory. Whilst that might explain a lot it does not mean that what he says is right or is good history.


I am not an intellectual but can see pig shit even without my glasses and Starkey is a self-publicising little scroat.  Some of what he says is absolutely spot-on but then he conflates it with other things making the whole pudding absolutely indigestible.


----------



## Red Storm (Nov 15, 2011)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/educatio...ey-in-new-row-over-mono-culture-comments.html

More of Starkey being an attention seeking tit.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 2, 2020)

he's done another racism again, this time while talking to mince-thick milksop Darren Grimes








						David Starkey widely criticised for 'slavery was not genocide' remarks
					

Sajid Javid leads condemnation of historian’s ‘so many damn blacks in Africa’ comments




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Treacle Toes (Jul 2, 2020)

Darren is a fucking racist too.


----------



## Roadkill (Jul 2, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> Darren is a fucking racist too.View attachment 220620



This comes as a surprise?!  He's a properly nasty little shit.


----------



## weltweit (Jul 2, 2020)

I was prepared to defend Starkey, as I have done in the past, but 1) I think he might have gone too far this time and 2) I can't be bothered, he is a grown up and he made his own bed.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 2, 2020)

weltweit said:


> this time


----------



## Roadkill (Jul 2, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I was prepared to defend Starkey, as I have done in the past



Don't bother.  Fitzwilliam aren't:


----------



## Santino (Jul 2, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I was prepared to defend Starkey, as I have done in the past, but 1) I think he might have gone too far this time and 2) I can't be bothered, he is a grown up and he made his own bed.


You were prepared to defend him because you are largely untroubled by people being racist.


----------



## killer b (Jul 2, 2020)

Even Darren Grimes isn't defending him, now.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jul 2, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> Darren is a fucking racist too.View attachment 220620


I can't work out what 'delegitimate British history' could possibly mean.


----------



## agricola (Jul 2, 2020)

killer b said:


> Even Darren Grimes isn't defending him, now.




was Grimes actually present when he interviewed him?


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 2, 2020)

agricola said:


> was Grimes actually present when he interviewed him?


furiously nodding along


----------



## DotCommunist (Jul 2, 2020)

he should have been fucked off after his 2011 comments but lots of eyewatering shit just flew under the radar then because of the riot reactions.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 2, 2020)

killer b said:


> Even Darren Grimes isn't defending him, now.



I liked the "Get fucked you novelty racist tea cup" comment


----------



## cantsin (Jul 2, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> (2011)
> if david starkey lives a thousand years, people will say this was his unfinest hour



nearly


----------



## weltweit (Jul 2, 2020)

Santino said:


> You were prepared to defend him because you are largely untroubled by people being racist.


I defended him in the past because I liked his combative style when he appeared on Question Time. He got publicity by saying risky things - but at the time I didn't think he was a racist. This utterance now, which I have heard only some of, I think goes too far and he deserves the backlash he will undoubtedly get.


----------



## agricola (Jul 2, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> furiously nodding along



no doubt nodding so furiously that he gave himself enough of a concussion that he now can't remember what the old racist said


----------



## killer b (Jul 2, 2020)

He got publicity by saying racist and sexist things you massive tool.


----------



## agricola (Jul 2, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I defended him in the past because I liked his combative style when he appeared on Question Time. He got publicity by saying risky things - but at the time I didn't think he was a racist. This utterance now, which I have heard, I think goes too far and he deserves the backlash he will undoubtedly get.



its amazing how many people you could use this exact post to describe


----------



## Roadkill (Jul 2, 2020)

Christ.  Grimes' 'I'm so new to this, I don't understand what's going on' schtick is about as unconvincing as it gets.  Evil little cunt.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 2, 2020)

Yep proper non apology apology.


----------



## krtek a houby (Jul 2, 2020)

In sure his popularity will sky rocket in certain fash quarters. Ugh.


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Jul 2, 2020)

Like the shithouse we all knew he was, Grimes has somehow not wanged up an apology on the racism factory app Parler. Instead this is his latest comment on the matter:


----------



## Treacle Toes (Jul 2, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I can't work out what 'delegitimate British history' could possibly mean.



I think he mean delegitimise but was creaming his pants to put it out he didn't spell check.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Jul 2, 2020)

Was baby Grimes also nodding along to this as well? Or was he disengaged and missed this too? 
🙄


----------



## not-bono-ever (Jul 2, 2020)

i fail to understand how deligitimising history is an actual thing- History is not a static entity, it refines and develops along the way. Its utter wank


----------



## Celyn (Jul 2, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> Darren is a fucking racist too.View attachment 220620


Is "delegitimate" really a word?


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## Treacle Toes (Jul 2, 2020)

Yeah but Grimes is so into history he deleted all of his tweets between 2016 and January of this year because 'history matters'  or something?  

It's wank indeed and clearly teaching all of history is a bad thing because he doesn't get to worship statues or something?


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## Treacle Toes (Jul 2, 2020)

Celyn said:


> Is "delegitimate" really a word?



I don't think so and google also says no.


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## Celyn (Jul 2, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I can't work out what 'delegitimate British history' could possibly mean.


You and me both.


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## Treacle Toes (Jul 3, 2020)

This  is the best vid of the day... Enjoy 👍🏽


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## Raheem (Jul 3, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> This  is the best vid of the day... Enjoy 👍🏽



I never thought I'd hear a version of that with a happy ending.


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## MrSki (Jul 3, 2020)

Mary Rose Trust has accepted his resignation.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jul 3, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> I think he mean delegitimise but was creaming his pants to put it out he didn't spell check.


Ah yes. Still no idea what he means by it.


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## not-bono-ever (Jul 3, 2020)

starkeys output on the life of toffs was not something I ever needed to or wanted to read. tiresome reactionary


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## William of Walworth (Jul 3, 2020)

not-bono-ever said:


> i fail to understand how deligitimising history is an actual thing- *History is not a static entity, it refines and develops along the way*. Its utter wank


This reminds me of what I posted in the Bristol slavery thread (Bristol/SW forum) a while back, immediately after the Colston statue was pulled down :


William of Walworth said:


> Very good article (IMO) about the Colston statue deposition here. David Olusoga has lived in Bristol for a good while I think :
> The toppling of Edward Colston's statue is not an attack on history. It is history
> Includes Colston Hall paragraph :
> 
> ...


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## Treacle Toes (Jul 3, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Ah yes. Still no idea what he means by it.


That his version, the one he likes where slave owners/traders are celebrated/revered, where everyone believes Britain is still GREAT, where racists can be themselves without criticism is the legitimate version. I think.


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## MrSki (Jul 3, 2020)

Hopefully it will also lead to Grimes not been invited as a commentator on media outlets talking about things he knows  sod all about.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jul 3, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> Was baby Grimes also nodding along to this as well? Or was he disengaged and missed this too?
> 🙄



It's totally bonkers, isn't it? Like telling Jews they should be thanking the Nazis for making Israel possible.


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## Puddy_Tat (Jul 3, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Ah yes. Still no idea what he means by it.



i think he meant 'cast doubt on the imperialist bullshit masquerading as history that the plebs are fed'


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## not-bono-ever (Jul 3, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> That his version, the one he likes where slave owners/traders are celebrated/revered, where everyone believes Britain is still GREAT, where racists can be themselves without criticism is the legitimate version. I think.



Its more about the idea of _rewriting history_- that in itself is a hugely loaded term these days. Any historian who doesn't strive to fill the gaps shouldnt be in the job.


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## MrSki (Jul 3, 2020)

not-bono-ever said:


> Its more about the idea of _rewriting history_- that in itself is a hugely loaded term these days. Any historian who doesn't strive to fill the gaps shouldnt be in the job.


It is looking more & more likely that Starkey won't be in a day or two.


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## William of Walworth (Jul 3, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> Was baby Grimes also nodding along to this as well? Or was he disengaged and missed this too?
> 🙄



Kinnell, I've only just looked at this  
That clip is only 21 seconds, but every single one of them is utterly racist shite!


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## Treacle Toes (Jul 3, 2020)

not-bono-ever said:


> Its more about the idea of _rewriting history_- that in itself is a hugely loaded term these days. Any historian who doesn't strive to fill the gaps shouldnt be in the job.



Yeah I know that. Also see Baby grimes  crying about not erasing history at the same time as deleting his own. It's mangled logic obviously.


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## Raheem (Jul 3, 2020)

not-bono-ever said:


> Its more about the idea of _rewriting history_- that in itself is a hugely loaded term these days. Any historian who doesn't strive to fill the gaps shouldnt be in the job.


And hopefully soon won't be.


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## William of Walworth (Jul 3, 2020)

not-bono-ever said:
			
		

> Its more about the idea of _rewriting history_- that in itself is a hugely loaded term these days. *Any historian who doesn't strive to fill the gaps shouldnt be in the job*.






			
				MrSki said:
			
		

> It is looking more & more likely that Starkey won't be in a day or two.


The Fitzwilliam board had better have proper look at *ALL* of the Starkey interview .....


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## littlebabyjesus (Jul 3, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Kinnell, I've only just looked at this
> That clip is only 21 seconds, but every single one of them is utterly racist shite!


It's really venomously hateful. 

And I really am getting old. Grimes looks like he's about twelve. Who is he and how is he?


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## littlebabyjesus (Jul 3, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> The Fitzwilliam board had better have proper look at *ALL* of the Starkey interview .....


Oh he's toast. He'll be disowned by a bunch of people who know him well and will have heard all this hateful drivel in private before but chose to disregard it and slather him with honours. 

And when I say 'disregard', I'm being charitable.


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## not-bono-ever (Jul 3, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Oh he's toast. He'll be disowned by a bunch of people who know him well and will have heard all this hateful drivel in private before but chose to disregard it and slather him with honours.
> 
> And when I say 'disregard', I'm being charitable.




Not even in private - he was an utter prick with his comments on the 2011 riots. Hes got plenty of form, its just we forget- the start of the thread was just this


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## little_legs (Jul 3, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It's really venomously hateful.
> 
> And I really am getting old. Grimes looks like he's about twelve. *Who is he *and how is he?


Pound Shop Ben Shapiro.


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## MrSki (Jul 3, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It's really venomously hateful.
> 
> And I really am getting old. Grimes looks like he's about twelve. Who is he and how is he?


He is the cunt who escaped prison but was fined £20000 (overturned on appeal) by Electoral Commision for overspend on the Brexit campaign. 

More details here.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Jul 3, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Pound Shop Ben Shapiro.


Nah too upmarket.

He is like one of those wish.com things that only ask you to pay shipping.


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## Sprocket. (Jul 3, 2020)

I fully expect Toby Young and Rod Liddell will venture out into the sunlight from under their rocks to support Starkey like they did in 2011.


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## marty21 (Jul 3, 2020)

killer b said:


> Even Darren Grimes isn't defending him, now.



Chucked his hero under the bus .


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## marty21 (Jul 3, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Hopefully it will also lead to Grimes not been invited as a commentator on media outlets talking about things he knows  sod all about.


That's why Dazza apologised 🤔


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## Roadkill (Jul 3, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Hopefully it will also lead to Grimes not been invited as a commentator on media outlets talking about things he knows  sod all about.



Chance would be a fine thing.  Unfortunately some broadcasters seem to have him on speed-dial.


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## danny la rouge (Jul 3, 2020)

I’ve only ever come across Grimes once before, and that was on Urban too.  I understand he’s some sort of YouTuber. I suppose he’ll be on Strictly before long.


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## agricola (Jul 3, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Chance would be a fine thing.  Unfortunately some broadcasters seem to have him on speed-dial.



G and H must be especially grim sections of the rolodex for those booking opinionists for TV News programmes - Harwood is even more annoying than Grimes is.


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## Nine Bob Note (Jul 3, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> I’ve only ever come across Grimes once before, and that was on Urban too.  I understand he’s some sort of YouTuber. I suppose he’ll be on Strictly before long.



Please take your partners for the goose step...


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## MrSki (Jul 3, 2020)

Starkey resigns from Fitzwilliam College.


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## MrSki (Jul 3, 2020)

Canterbury Christ Church has fired him too.   

Historian David Starkey fired by universities after saying slavery wasn't genocide


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## Roadkill (Jul 3, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Starkey resigns from Fitzwilliam College.




Well, that's saved them the trouble of terminating his fellowship.


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## platinumsage (Jul 3, 2020)

I think the "damn" did it for him so quickly. Without that he'd be able to plead that he just worded his controversial opinion badly etc..


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## MrSki (Jul 3, 2020)

Looks like Darren Grimes is a bit fucked too.


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## danny la rouge (Jul 3, 2020)

Couldn’t have happened to a nicer fellow.  It’s interesting that he rode out previous storms but not this one at this time.   Silly prick.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 3, 2020)

What's the betting he thinks he said nothing wrong.


----------



## xenon (Jul 3, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> he's done another racism again, this time while talking to mince-thick milksop Darren Grimes
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Fucking hell, Just seen this.


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## Pickman's model (Jul 3, 2020)

two sheds said:


> What's the betting he thinks he said nothing wrong.


he'll change his tune when his income topples off a cliff

already harpercollins have stopped acting as his publisher


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## two sheds (Jul 3, 2020)

and on the principle that your friends reflect on the sort of person you are, he'll have some choice supporters still to spend his time with


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## xenon (Jul 3, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> This reminds me of what I posted in the Bristol slavery thread (Bristol/SW forum) a while back, immediately after the Colston statue was pulled down :



You'll not be surprised to know there's loads of reactionary fuckwits talking about how tearing that down is an affront, erasing history, why don't the Bristol Post show the faces of the suspects ect. All being played out on social media again with a pub Colston Arms going to change it'se name. (it has only been called that a few years anyway.)

I have to restrain myself from simply calling them all thick / and or racist cunts.


----------



## dylanredefined (Jul 3, 2020)

It was the Damn that did for him. For someone who is supposed to be clever he really put his foot in his mouth.


----------



## xenon (Jul 3, 2020)

dylanredefined said:


> It was the Damn that did for him. For someone who is supposed to be clever he really put his foot in his mouth.



his racist foot, in his racist mouth.


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## Boris Sprinkler (Jul 3, 2020)

We dont put the senile or virgins on tv.


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## Nine Bob Note (Jul 3, 2020)

Boris Sprinkler said:


> We dont put the senile or virgins on tv.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jul 3, 2020)

Nine Bob Note said:


>


please use the spoiler code for pictures like this


----------



## marty21 (Jul 3, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> Couldn’t have happened to a nicer fellow.  It’s interesting that he rode out previous storms but not this one at this time.   Silly prick.



It's a massive fuck up by Grimes, he sets up a new platform , interviews his hero, just nods & smiles as Starkey spews racist bile , edits the interview, promotes the interview , and releases the interview on the site . Only when he suddenly gets a load of shit does he backtrack , claim he didn't know what he was doing ,and disowns his hero   when he realises he may not get all those talking head gigs on the MSM he is supposed to despise.


----------



## Sprocket. (Jul 3, 2020)

Nine Bob Note said:


>


Devil, Devil, I defy thee.


----------



## ska invita (Jul 3, 2020)

not-bono-ever said:


> i fail to understand how deligitimising history is an actual thing- History is not a static entity, it refines and develops along the way. Its utter wank





littlebabyjesus said:


> Ah yes. Still no idea what he means by it.


What he means is european enlightened imperial colonialism is oh so very legitimate (as in justifiable...valid) in these twos minds and heart, and BLM are challenging that legitimacy and its Not On.


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## Raheem (Jul 3, 2020)

marty21 said:


> It's a massive fuck up by Grimes, he sets up a new platform , interviews his hero, just nods & smiles as Starkey spews racist bile , edits the interview, promotes the interview , and releases the interview on the site . Only when he suddenly gets a load of shit does he backtrack , claim he didn't know what he was doing ,and disowns his hero   when he realises he may not get all those talking head gigs on the MSM he is supposed to despise.


Good post for you, Marty. You OK?

(ETA Clearly you are not yourself.)


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jul 3, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Good post for you, Marty. You OK?


21 not 1


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## CNT36 (Jul 3, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Good post for you, Marty. You OK?


This is the good one.


----------



## Raheem (Jul 3, 2020)

Oh. Like finding there's a bag of crisps left, then realising they're Worcester sauce.

Apologies to Martys everywhere.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 3, 2020)

marty21 said:


> It's a massive fuck up by Grimes, he sets up a new platform , interviews his hero, just nods & smiles as Starkey spews racist bile , edits the interview, promotes the interview , and releases the interview on the site . Only when he suddenly gets a load of shit does he backtrack , claim he didn't know what he was doing ,and disowns his hero   when he realises he may not get all those talking head gigs on the MSM he is supposed to despise.


I’ve never even heard the guy’s voice.  I saw a link to some video where he apparently parodies the Martin Niemöller thing, but I saw no reason to click it.  Some 12 year old nobody I don’t need to learn anything about.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jul 3, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> he'll change his tune when his income topples off a cliff
> 
> *already harpercollins have stopped acting as his publisher*



Really? Was that today also?  

(Friday  on my part  -- cheers  )


----------



## AnandLeo (Jul 6, 2020)

I thought that is what he meant in his last controversial interview.

I don’t seem to get this quote in the right format with the original post.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 6, 2020)

Just heard about this. 

Can't say I ever found him the most likeable of chaps tbf.


----------



## AnandLeo (Jul 6, 2020)

starkey said:
"The problem is that the whites have become black."

I thought that is what he meant in his last controversial interview.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 6, 2020)

AnandLeo said:


> starkey said:
> "The problem is that the whites have become black."
> 
> 
> I thought that is what he meant in his last controversial interview.


wot, that was in 2011


----------



## 8ball (Jul 6, 2020)

AnandLeo said:


> starkey said:
> "The problem is that the whites have become black."



That's... confusing.


----------



## belboid (Jul 6, 2020)

I always thought Neil Oliver seemed okay. Sadly not.









						It should come as no surprise that Oliver would declare love for racist Starkey
					

WHEN David Starkey came out with his latest racist outburst in an interview with the right-wing activist Darren Grimes, it can hardly have been…




					www.thenational.scot
				












						Neil Oliver to step down as NTS president after David Starkey row
					

NEIL Oliver has announced he is stepping down as president of the National Trust for Scotland.




					www.thenational.scot
				




Useless fucking prick


----------



## Pickman's model (Jul 6, 2020)

belboid said:


> I always thought Neil Oliver seemed okay. Sadly not.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


they walk among us


----------



## 8ball (Jul 6, 2020)

I was kind of surprised Starkey managed to shrug of the 2011 business.
He nailed the timing this time, though.


----------



## little_legs (Jul 6, 2020)




----------



## agricola (Jul 6, 2020)

belboid said:


> I always thought Neil Oliver seemed okay. Sadly not.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Finally, it will be socially acceptable to say that Coast was far better when Nicolas Crane presented it.


----------

