BS: There are decades when nothing happens

Subject: RE: BS: There are decades when nothing happens
From: Mr Red
Date: 27 Sep 16 - 02:49 PM

Deutsche Bank looking shaky.
Something I would not have predicted, though looking back.........

Subject: RE: BS: There are decades when nothing happens
From: Ed T
Date: 27 Sep 16 - 08:51 AM

Nothing Happened

"Voice Over: (Michael Palin) June the 4th, 1973, was much like any other summer's day in Peterborough, and Ralph Melish, a file clerk at an insurance company, was on his way to work as usual when... (da dum!) Nothing happened! (dum dum da dum) Scarcely able to believe his eyes, Ralph Melish looked down. But one glance confirmed his suspicions. Behind a bush, on the side of the road, there was *no* severed arm. No dismembered trunk of a man in his late fifties. No head in a bag. Nothing. Not a sausage. For Ralph Melish, this was *not* to be the start of any trail of events which would not, in no time at all, involve him in neither a tangled knot of suspicion, nor any web of lies, which would, had he been not uninvolved, surely have led him to no other place, than the central criminal court of the Old Bailey.

(muttering voices, Judge's gavel banging.)

Voice Over: But it was not to be (ominous music returns). Ralph Melish reached his office in Dullsells Street in Peterborough, at 9:05 a.m., exactly the same time as he usually got in!

(door opens)

Enid: Morning, Mr. Melish

Ralph: (Terry Jones) Morning, Enid

Voice Over: Enid, a sharp-eyed, clever young girl, who had been with the firm for only 4 weeks, couldn't help noticing the complete absence of tiny but tell-tale blood stains on Mr. Melish's clothing. Nor did she notice anything strange in Mr. Melish's behaviour that whole morning. Nor the next morning. Nor at any time before or since the entire period she worked for that firm.

Ralph: Have the new paper clips arrived, Enid?

Enid: Yes, they're over there, Mr. Melish.

Ralph: (faintly) Oh...

Voice Over: But for the lack of any untoward circumstances for this young secretary to notice, and the total non-involvement of Mr. Melish in anything illegal, the full weight of the law would have insured that Ralph Auldus Melish would have ended up like all who challenge the fundamental laws of our society. In an iron coffin with spikes on the inside."

(Monty Python)

Subject: RE: BS: There are decades when nothing happens
From: akenaton
Date: 27 Sep 16 - 07:02 AM

I think Mr Red is correct, there are huge movements afoot all over the world which will radically change society......will we like all of these changes? .....definitely not.

They are undoubtedly needed, but the benefits will be long term and not linked to wealth or "higher living standards"
Chiefly, they will involve the organisation of society to make it workable and sustainable.

Subject: RE: BS: There are decades when nothing happens
From: Mr Red
Date: 27 Sep 16 - 03:13 AM

methinks we are (in one important context) living in interesting times.

Now who cursed me? I want to know.

Subject: RE: BS: There are decades when nothing happens
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 26 Sep 16 - 12:59 PM

If we're going for quotes:

"All quiet on the western front"

Sort of sums it up.

Subject: RE: BS: There are decades when nothing happens
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Sep 16 - 12:43 PM

I don't know if there actually is a Chinese curse "may you live in interesting times", but it's true enough. Both in the big public world and in our own lives there are some times when everything seems to happen at once.

Subject: RE: BS: There are decades when nothing happens
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 26 Sep 16 - 11:27 AM

its all in the eye of the beholder.
if there was a caveman scratching his arse.
It might seem like nothing happened to Marx and Engels.
But for the caveman it was the decade of the itchy arse, and ten years scratching your bum. It would have some significance for the people involved in that era.

Subject: RE: BS: There are decades when nothing happens
From: leeneia
Date: 26 Sep 16 - 11:19 AM

Simplistic. Some people, esp male historians, think history consists of governments and armies. Maybe in Russia in government didn't change much for years before the Revolution, but from the perspective of a human being, much happened.

Storms, famines, epidemics, forest fires, mineral discoveries, medical advances, inventions, migration, etc. All these are part of history.

Subject: RE: BS: There are decades when nothing happens
From: mkebenn
Date: 26 Sep 16 - 08:57 AM

Would that "nothing" happens this decade. Mike

Subject: RE: BS: There are decades when nothing happens
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 26 Sep 16 - 08:38 AM

Just think about that ...
If vladmir Ilyich Lenin had posted on mudcat and someone had pointed out to him that he was talking pompous bollocks....
It might have saved the czar's life.

Subject: RE: BS: There are decades when nothing happens
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 26 Sep 16 - 08:30 AM

this is true...sometimes three decade teeth drop out at once.
sometimes they don't.
The man was a genius.

Subject: BS: There are decades when nothing happens
From: Mr Red
Date: 26 Sep 16 - 08:08 AM

and there are weeks when decades happen

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

USA take note. the UK forgot this.