Posts by Backdrifter

  • Are political threads allowed?

    Anyway, on the subject of this thread on this forum, as with other fan forum type sites I've been on, I like that there are off-topic areas. It's interesting to be in a fan community and get a taste of what fellow fans think about stuff outside the main focus - other bands, film, tv, sport, food and yes, politics. But I totally get board members preferring to focus on the band and not be drawn into other stuff, especially areas that might get tense or gloomy. But as mentioned, not that the topic of Genesis itself doesn't get tense - there have been some fruity old band-related ding-dongs round these parts.

  • Are political threads allowed?

    Re above remarks from Art Vandaley and Liquid Len. Something about the process of typing opinions (about most things but more so politics) into a device screen often skews/renders them into deep polarisation. Everything, EVERYTHING, is EITHER apples OR oranges - there is nothing else, NOTHING, and depending on whether you prefer the apples or the oranges you are WRONG WRONG WRONG and utterly beyond help. And even when an exchange begins more moderately than that it all too often collapses into matter vs antimatter.


    My own perception is that this polarisation in public discourse has intensified during the last 5 years or so. I've always enjoyed a heated exchange - I am that customer in the Monty Python sketch, "I'd like to have an argument please" - but have found these recent years I'm frequently sucked into a battle of extremes, exacerbated by the fact that each 'side' is utterly convinced it's the other lot who are the worst when it comes to splattering insults or existing in a 'bubble' or 'echo chamber'.


    If not already apparent from previous posts I do have a 'side'. While I don't consider myself a "lefty" I do get called that by people of whom I'm more than a picometre to the left, but while having never voted Labour in any context I see myself as left of centre. Not that I'm sure there is a 'centre', more a sort of barren demilitarised zone. From where I am I see left and right going at each other like Alien vs Predator.


    I'm not trying to paint myself as Lord Arbiter of Balance, I know I've been guilty of lashing out but having seen others doing it I'm more conscious of reining myself in if I feel the gorge rising. I'm trying Ringo, I'm trying real hard!

  • What TV shows have you been watching ?

    BBC drama I'm currently watching:


    The Pact, in which factory workers play a prank on their repulsive boss but it escalates wildly out of control.


    The Terror - fact-based on a 19th-century polar expedition mystery with a group of mariners getting into what you might call a spot of bother, with supernatural overtones.


    The Pursuit of Love - early/mid 20th-century wayward girl and her more sensible cousin, who narrates it, getting into love/lust-related scrapes. I've only watched the first episode so far but will continue, admittedly for not entirely artistic reasons.

  • Champion's League final

    The result pissed me off as I've hated Chelsea since I was at school. I grew up in SW London and there were CFC fans everywhere. At school all the thuggish slack-jawed bullies in the lower sets were CFC fans and it coloured my view of the club for life.


    Am I being unfair to CFC fans generally, tarring them all with the same brush? Yes. (And there were nice blokes, including friends, who supported Chelsea). And I'm not really tarring them all with the same brush but this is football and animosities formed in school days are deep-rooted! And you've got to have at least one 'hate' team. I hoped that having won the PL with room to spare City could've squeezed out one further win.

  • Are political threads allowed?

    Quote from boredatwork

    Maybe he has, but then if the entire media was obsessed with endlessly reporting my every word, deed & thought I reckon I’d be entirely justified in having a god complex! Just ignoring him, or at least keeping things in proportion, would be the most effective way of ensuring it withers away, so surely it’s worth a try?

    My point was that whatever his shortcomings are, and clearly they are many, as someone who was brought into government at a senior level and was there during a crisis his testimony can't simply be ignored, certainly not by the parliamentary machinery if not by the media.


    From what I understand, his inflated view of himself precedes his involvement in brexit and Johnson's government.


    Even if what he has said, and the evidence he's presented, is partially flawed why would you want the issues he's referred to, to wither away?

  • Are political threads allowed?

    I've seen a few of these comments along the lines of "first they hate him, now they love him, aha, gotcha", which as a position is a gross oversimplification.


    Clearly, this is someone with a self-serving agenda and by all accounts he has some sort of god complex. He has a reputation of thinking himself superior to all the human dross around him, which is possibly why he made a couple of attempts to downplay that characteristic in his statements to the committee. I didn't like him when I became aware of him and I still don't.


    I have no doubt that yes, he is spurred on by resentment that he was dispensed with. But it's more than disingenuous to simply dismiss what he is saying in its entirety or reduce it to mere 'tittle-tattle.' However poor his judgement was in doing so, Johnson chose to put DC at the heart of government, where he was still in place during a national crisis. Dislike DC as I do, I find it hard to simply wave away all 7 hours of testimony and documentation as pure 100% fabrication, coming as it does from a person who was central to government during the critical period.


    I've made no secret on this forum how much I detest the current UK government, so of course I myself stand to be dismissed with "Ah, you just love that he gave them a kicking". If what he said is even just partly true, it gives me no pleasure to learn what a shit-fest we have at our helm. I live here, for fuck's sake. And "all governments are full of incompetence, just accept it" doesn't cut it, especially under the current circumstances, and is the worst, most lazy-thinking kind of shoulder-shrugging.


    Government isn't easy at the best of times, let alone in a health crisis, I get that and I accept mistakes will be made. But if there's any truth in what Cummings said, it goes beyond struggling through as best they could. The UK had a widely admired pandemic protocol in place. There are countries on the opposite side of the world who adopted it and had relatively few deaths, pound for pound, and are astonished that the originator of the plan they used didn't bother with it. Why didn't we?


    Despite DC's reputation, as someone who was in the midst of government during covid the volume and detail of what he said should not be dismissed. To do so is at best delusional, at worst to disregard that thousands of deaths might have been avoidable but for government action. If Cummings is right, Johnson is accountable for his actions. If everything he presented is a total fabrication, Johnson is accountable for his woeful judgement in recruiting someone who'd do that and placing them at the top and centre of government.


    But of course, probably nothing will happen. We are long past the time when senior politicians resigned for lesser misdemeanours than Johnson would be accountable for if even 10% of what Cummings said was true.

  • Are political threads allowed?

    Sorry just one more quote, one that I think sums up the state of UK politics, as represented by the 2019 election choice of Johnson and Corbyn, commented on by Cummings -


    "Any system which gives a choice between 2 people like that to lead is obviously a system that's gone extremely badly wrong. There are so many thousands of wonderful people in this county who could provide better leadership."




  • Are political threads allowed?

    UK politics being turned on its head today as Johnson's infamous former advisor Dominic Cummings, with whom the PM fell out, is questioned by a parliamentary health & science committee and wastes no time throwing the government under the bus -


    “The truth is, senior ministers, senior officials, senior advisors like me fell disastrously short of the standards that the public has the right to expect in a crisis like this. When the public needed us most the government failed.”


    “I’d like to apologise to the families of loved ones who died unnecessarily for the mistakes that were made.”


    This is the single most direct admission of cuplability by anyone connected with government since the pandemic started.


    "The government was not on a war footing in February in any way shape or form. Lots of key people were literally skiing in the middle of Feb. It wasn't until the last week of February that there was any sense of urgency in No 10 and the Cabinet Office."


    It's been pointed out to him that he is not free from blame in this and while he has admitted that he is also ducking and swerving, and painting a picture of his being relatively more concerned about developments than those around him. Also giving lie to the portrayal of him as a master data strategist and tactician, saying he is "not a models and data person and didn't understand a lot of the modelling going on at the time". He adds there was a resistance to implementing social distancing, partly as "there was no plan in place".


    He recalls a meeting with the Deputy Cabinet Secretary, whom he quotes:


    "I've been told today that there's a whole plan for this. There is no plan. We're in huge trouble. I've come through to the PM's office to tell you that we're absolutely fucked. I think this country is heading for a disaster. We're going to kill thousands of people."


    He says that on 12 March 2020 there was government talk of a herd immunity plan "like the old chicken pox parties". This added to what he describes as a surreal day on which pandemic planning, such as it was, was derailed by Trump wanting UK to join US in bombing Iraq and the PM's girlfriend going doolally demanding that a story in the press about her dog be dealt with.


    Just one further nugget before I bore you all into a coma. Among documents submitted by Cummings is a photo of a whiteboard from a planning session. In among the scribbles on it is the phrase, who should we not save?

  • Food and Drink

    Quote from CountingOutTime

    I use Kraft sandwich spread instead of mayo when mixing chicken salad. It's creamy, has bits of pickle and tastes great!


    Sandwich spread is something I recall from my childhood here in the UK but I don't know if it's still available here.


    PS - "America's favorite" - I hope they can back that up!


    Though if they mean "America's favorite mayo with chopped pickles mixed in" there may not be a very crowded market.