The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 09 Nov 08 - 07:24 PM

Wavey: anyone who works in a specialist field in the UK needs to be prepared to re-locate to where the work is. My ex-husband, a journalist, was compelled to do this several times, taking wife and child with him. I, too, have had to apply for jobs which take me away from my immediate locality, because of the nature of my profession.

Do you apply for jobs nationally? Are you prepared to re-locate to get yourself off the dole? And you still haven't explained how a "re-patriate" on the dole benefits the indigenous culture more than an immigrant who is paying his way.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Nov 08 - 07:17 PM

LOL! Well, I would wish that on the Republican Party's support base too, as long as the rest of us would not be required to share it with them.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Don Firth
Date: 09 Nov 08 - 07:07 PM

"Will it be hanging? Garroting? Death by Guillotine? Burning at the stake? Thrown into a pit of famished rats?"

Little Hawk, for shame! Have you no imagination? "Tsk tsk!" I say unto you. And furthermore, "Tsk!"

Nothing so crude!

My sentence would be that David find himself living in exactly the kind of world he says he wants.

Think about it!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Nov 08 - 05:19 PM

Ah, good! Now we can finally have the sentencing. Will it be hanging? Garroting? Death by Guillotine? Burning at the stake? Thrown into a pit of famished rats? Decisions, decisions. ;-)

And will the defendant launch an appeal? I'm betting he will. This may end up going all the way to the Supreme Court or even the World Court before it is done.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: GUEST,Smokey
Date: 09 Nov 08 - 05:19 PM

Spaw:

Stealth-blown is an Olde English custom that used to traditionally take place behind the bike sheds or on the back seat of a bus... isn't it?

Ruth Archer:

A round of applause!

WaV:

Whiteboy, if you really are as unemployable as you seem, try and find something useful to do with your time. I'm sure there are training courses for all sorts of things available. I believe there's also a book that may be of benefit too: "How to Make Friends and Influence People".

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Don Firth
Date: 09 Nov 08 - 05:10 PM

Exactly so, Pip! I'd say that ends that particular discussion.

Sorry, David. The verdict is in.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Gervase
Date: 09 Nov 08 - 05:08 PM

Well Franks, so you really do believe that "capitalist/economic immigration" is to blame for the current economic predicament in which we find ourselves?
Your views are no different from those of the British National Party. And you have the temerity to claim you aren't a racist? Don't make me bloody bark, you ignorant fool.
Tell me, my little fascist, what are your views on the Jewish question?
Talking of which, there was rather a good programme about a poet on the radio this afternoon. Isaac Rosenberg - a "jewboy" whose parents were economic migrants. A good poet, too. In fact, a better poet on his worst day than you'll ever be on your best.
He wasn't a workshy scrounger who parasitised his adopted country, either. He needed to find a job to support his family, so he joined the Army. He served for three years and died for his country on the first of April, 1918, leaving behind some of the finest war poetry ever written.
Read it and weep, you bottom-feeding scumsucker. You wouldn't be fit to lick his boots.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 09 Nov 08 - 04:41 PM

there is no such "prejudice" or "superior"/"inferior" ideas in the above poem

Don't be ridiculous. You quite clearly say that 'mass immigration' (by non-English people) has led to the partial loss of English culture. You go so far as to equate the defence of English culture against the influence of non-English immigrants with the defence of liberty against Fascism.

OED: "prejudice and antagonism towards people of other races, especially those felt to be a threat to one's cultural or racial integrity or economic well-being"

The definition fits like a glove.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Don Firth
Date: 09 Nov 08 - 04:09 PM

David, let me quote a verse from a hard-hitting song written by Eric Bogle, a Scotsman who emigrated to Australia (as I learned it from the singing of Ronnie Browne).

Contemplations while sitting by a gravestone in a World War I military cemetery in France.

I can't help but wonder, young Willie McBride,
Do those who lie here really know why they died?
Did they believe when they answered the call?
Did they really believe that this war would end wars?
The sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the shame;
The killing, the dying, were all done in vain,
For, young Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.

© Eric Bogle

Unfortunately, what Eric Bogle wrote is all too true.

"Most" is not enough.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 09 Nov 08 - 03:31 PM

I said "most" Don.
Pip - you and others have to accept that there is no such "prejudice" or "superior"/"inferior" ideas in the above poem, or any of the others in my collection, where I do, rather, on several occasions, question THE ACT OFIMMIGRATION ITELF; and, since I do watch the news/current affairs, I'll do so again in prose - did New Labour really fix the roof while the economic climate was good over the last few years, or did they, rather, allow a record amount of capitalist/economic immgiration through the door?

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: s&r
Date: 09 Nov 08 - 03:12 PM

Were there any mudcatters at the Northumbrian Gathering? Did you win a prize?

Stu

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Don Firth
Date: 09 Nov 08 - 02:42 PM

If there is a good thing
    From the Second World War
It's that most peoples learnt
    To conquer lands no more.

DID they, indeed? And how many wars have there been since the end of World War II?

Read up a bit on recent history, David. In fact, since you have a telly, you might even try watching the news.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 09 Nov 08 - 02:24 PM

in the above poem I don't criticize immigrants of any particular background only, again, the act of mass/economic/capitalist immigration itself, so what you said, again, is false and defamatory

Change the record. Get this into your head, if you can: you don't have to criticize immigrants of any particular background in order for your views to be racist.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines 'racism' as follows:

The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races. Hence: prejudice and antagonism towards people of other races, especially those felt to be a threat to one's cultural or racial integrity or economic well-being; the expression of such prejudice in words or actions. Also occasionally in extended use, with reference to people of other nationalities.

Unless you can show that that poem doesn't exhibit "prejudice and antagonism towards people of other races, especially those felt to be a threat to one's cultural or racial integrity or economic well-being", Ruth's correct and you're the one who owes her an apology.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 09 Nov 08 - 02:13 PM

Pip - please read the poem again

Since you've treated my comments with such lack of care and attention, I'm minded to tell you to bog off. But OK, here goes:

Back when we became defenders
    (We have plainly been attackers),
Defenders' blood, sweat and years
    Were paid to keep a good home-way -

This is factually incorrect. As far as Britain is concerned, the war was fought against Fascism, for freedom and for democracy, but emphatically not for the preservation of traditional culture. English traditional culture was both massively eroded and massively changed by the war and its aftermath. It would have been much better preserved by peace with Nazi Germany. Obviously, I think the damage - and change, which isn't the same thing - to English traditional culture was a price worth paying for the defeat of Fascism. Do you?

A way yet to be part stealth-blown,
    As mass immigration gained-sway
And as we slipped as maintainers.

As far as I can see this is factually wrong as well - I'm not aware of any destructive change to English culture which was identifiably caused by immigration. But I'm willing to be enlightened: in what sense has the English 'way' been partially 'blown' as a result of 'mass immigration'? What, specifically, are you talking about?

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 09 Nov 08 - 01:42 PM

Ruth/Joan Crump of the national Council - in the above poem I don't criticize immigrants of any particular background only, again, the act of mass/economic/capitalist immigration itself, so what you said, again, is false and defamatory; and you are also ignorant regarding industry/locatiion.

Catspaw - do you stand by your use of the term "whiteboy" on the Eng. Inst. thread, above the line?

Pip - please read the poem again, and this one...

Poem 76 of 230: LAND RIGHTS

If there is a good thing
    From the Second World War
It's that most peoples learnt
    To conquer lands no more.

In Africa, Asia,
    And the Pacific, too:
Post-war independence -
    Steps only bigots rue.

But for some indigenes,
    Outnumbered much-too-much,
It has all come too late
    For liberty, as such.

So 'tis in Australia,
    And America's sites,
Where the best now, I think,
    Is to respect land rights.

From walkaboutsverse.741.com

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 09 Nov 08 - 10:14 AM

I'm more and more puzzled by WAV's depiction of World War II as a defence of something called "a good home-way". In the real world, the war led directly to

- the disruption of centuries-old rural traditions of dance, song and ritual, some of which were only revived decades later while much was lost altogether
- a massive increase in the average Brit's exposure to American culture
- the decolonisation of the Empire, which in turn enabled former subjects of the Empire to move freely around the new Commonwealth, and in particular to come to Britain

If you define "English culture" as "English traditional culture as it was in the early part of the 20th century"*, then there's no two ways about it - the War was a disaster for English culture.

If Halifax had become Prime Minister and Britain had made peace with Germany, on the other hand, none of the things listed above would have happened. British traditions would not have been disrupted by the upheaval of war, and would have been encouraged and celebrated by a Fascist-sympathising government. There would have been no GIs in Britain, no Lend-Lease and no Americanisation of our own good British culture. The rulers of the great new Germano-British Empire wouldn't have dreamt of decolonisation, and its colonial subjects certainly wouldn't have been permitted to settle in the British homeland.

In short, World War II was fought for freedom, for democracy, for capitalism (in the West and Far East), for Communism (in Eastern Europe)... but definitely not for the preservation of English traditional culture. On the contrary, it promoted social mobility, the importation of American culture, racial equality and immigration. If WAV had been around at the time, I think he might have been happier on the other side - along with bucolic English dreamers like Henry Williamson and Rolf Gardiner.

*I don't.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: catspaw49
Date: 09 Nov 08 - 09:45 AM

STEALTH-BLOWN?

What the hell is that? LOL.....Geeziz, gimmee a break here...............ROTFLMAO........

Spaw

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Gervase
Date: 09 Nov 08 - 09:08 AM

I bet they were chuffed to little mintballs to have their event graced by a racist, talentless, workshy ocker.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Stu
Date: 09 Nov 08 - 08:56 AM

"...The Alnwick Northumbrian Gathering, rather."

Rather.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 09 Nov 08 - 07:52 AM

"Defenders' blood, sweat and years
    Were paid to keep a good home-way -
A way yet to be part stealth-blown,
    As mass immigration gained-sway"

Well, there it is: WAV's racism and xenophobia summed up tidily in four poorly-scanning lines. Can't say we're twisting your wirds with htis one, matey - hoist by your own racist petard.

Wavey, you still haven't told me who you think contributes more to English society: the immigrant doing several poorly-paid jobs to keep their family, or the "re-pat" who is content to collect the dole because he can't find a job in his chosen field, and won't take whatever work he can find? You also haven't explained why it's okay for you to choose to live in the region of Britain where you are least likely to find employment in your chosen field (just because you fancy living there), but other people who choose to move somewhere to actually find work and NOT be a burden on the state are the ones who are in the wrong...


+

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Stu
Date: 09 Nov 08 - 05:04 AM

Time to get winding everyone up then!

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 09 Nov 08 - 04:07 AM

"At least he's back - I was worried he'd done a bunk." (Stigweard)...The Alnwick Northumbrian Gathering, rather.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Don Firth
Date: 09 Nov 08 - 12:41 AM

Sorry. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: GUEST,Smokey
Date: 08 Nov 08 - 08:41 PM

I say - you chaps out there in the colonies - less bickering please. We're supposed to be protecting my Good English Culture here..

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Don Firth
Date: 08 Nov 08 - 06:57 PM

HEY!!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Nov 08 - 04:15 PM

If he's like most Americans, he won't even notice... ;-)

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: GUEST,Smokey
Date: 08 Nov 08 - 03:28 PM

Did he? Crikey.. I wonder how he'll react to the rise of the English Nationalist Party?

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Nov 08 - 03:09 PM

Hey, guys, cheer up! Obama won.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: GUEST,Smokey
Date: 08 Nov 08 - 01:40 PM

"And as we slipped as maintainers."

Should that have been 'mountaineers'?

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Stu
Date: 08 Nov 08 - 09:29 AM

This verse becomes particularly repugnant when you consider the number of people from countries occupied during the Empire who died fighting for a motherland they only knew as an oppressor.

Has to be said WAV, this sordid little stanza harbours some rather odious opinions.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Will Fly
Date: 08 Nov 08 - 09:15 AM

More bilge from DF, alias WAV:

Back when we became defenders
    (We have plainly been attackers),
Defenders' blood, sweat and years
    Were paid to keep a good home-way -
A way yet to be part stealth-blown,
    As mass immigration gained-sway
And as we slipped as maintainers.

"And we slipped as maintainers" is yet another example of your leaden ear and your complete lack of any poetic talent. I've also noticed your utterly pointless use of the hyphen. I could just about stomach a hyphen in the phrase "stealth-blown" - but why in God's name use one in "gained-sway", or "home-way" for that matter? It's idiotic. My guess is that you do it because you think it dignifies your words and makes it look Poetic with a capital P or Lyrical with a capital L.

As for the message in the so-called poem - and I suppose we have to be grateful that there is some visible message - it stinks. It implies that all the poor sods who died in wars were doing no more than protecting their culture, and that their efforts were undermined by stealthy, mass immigration.

What crap.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: GUEST,Howard Jones
Date: 08 Nov 08 - 07:37 AM

"Mass immigration"? The National Statistics Office shows that less than 8% of the population is from ethnic minorities. Net immigration is less than 1/4 million a year, out of a population of nearly 59 m.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Stu
Date: 08 Nov 08 - 07:26 AM

At least he's back - I was worried he'd done a bunk.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 08 Nov 08 - 05:22 AM

Defenders' blood, sweat and years
    Were paid to keep a good home-way -
A way yet to be part stealth-blown,
    As mass immigration gained-sway

WWII wasn't fought to defend British (let alone English) culture. In fact, actual folk traditions suffered badly from the disruption of war, and might have been maintained better if we'd made peace with Germany. (There certainly wouldn't have been any American influence on British culture, and none of those multiculturalismsesss.) On the other hand, nobody's shown me that mass immigration has done anything to English culture other than enrich it.

So the reality is more like this:

Defenders' blood, sweat and years
    Were paid to defeat Fascism, albeit at some cost to English traditional culture
Which, fortunately, lots more people are now interested in
    With the additional benefit that it's subsequently been enriched by the effects of mass immigration.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: peregrina
Date: 08 Nov 08 - 04:54 AM

WAV, I suggest you try 'repatriating'--that is, deleting-- all words in your verse that are not of Anglo-Saxon origin and not using those words again.

The point that the language you use is itself the product of centuries of cultural exchange and human movement would be immediately evident.

Language itself affirms that we are one species with a capacity to be enriched by borrowing from each other's cultures.

A lot of the unique expressiveness of English comes from its vast vocabulary. Song preceded language in human evolution; and music no less than language is enriched by assimilating new ingredients.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: s&r
Date: 08 Nov 08 - 04:19 AM

"blood sweat and years" is the first poetic phrase I have found in your work.

I just have a horrible feeling that it's a typo....

If not, well done.

Stu

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 08 Nov 08 - 03:33 AM

THE WEEKLY WALKABOUT

Poem 212 of 230: REMEMBER THEM?

Back when we became defenders
    (We have plainly been attackers),
Defenders' blood, sweat and years
    Were paid to keep a good home-way -
A way yet to be part stealth-blown,
    As mass immigration gained-sway
And as we slipped as maintainers.


From walkaboutsverse.741.com

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: s&r
Date: 06 Nov 08 - 02:10 PM

Not sure about 'ordinary' either. Can I coin a word infraordinary to describe someone whose arrogance is without foundation in any meri?

STU

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: s&r
Date: 06 Nov 08 - 11:04 AM

Sorry, not sure about fork lift trucks

Stu

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: s&r
Date: 06 Nov 08 - 11:03 AM

A first degree is merely moderate education. Your training is out of date. Without exception every poster on this thread demonstrates better education, training, insight, and understanding of any topic you opine about than you do

Stu

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: catspaw49
Date: 06 Nov 08 - 10:31 AM

Geeziz what a laugh!!!! Can anyone actually believe this crap? Why and how on earth could even someone having a soupcon of brains believe that a racist and doofus piece of shit like David Franks could offer a "good way" forward? How damned egocentric can you be to even have the gall to suggest it?

David, you are just pathetic. With your head so far up your ass it is impossible to see anything forward. You're just a dick.....a really tiny dick.....just a dick........not even a hard on.........I'm told the only time you have ever had an erection was watching a sheep being sheared.............

Spaw

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Gervase
Date: 06 Nov 08 - 09:18 AM

Eric, stop holding back. Let it go and tell it like it is!
This thread really should be called the Weakly Wank, given wor Davey's obsession with self-abuse.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 06 Nov 08 - 08:18 AM

WalkaboutsVerse ? what plonker, he really has lost touch with reality,
his inane drivel " a good way forward for humanity " my arse.

eric

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Stu
Date: 06 Nov 08 - 07:50 AM

"Stigweard: as an "ordinary" - if well travelled and trained - person I maintain walkaboutsverse.741.com is a good way forward for humanity, hence I'm here"

Get to fuck, wind-up boy!

"And how would that be different from ordinary people talking in person?"

A number of ways I reckon. Firstly, talking on the web enables us to express opinions we might not be so open about if we talking in person. This is a double-edges sword of course. In some ways it allows people to express themselves freely but on the other hand it also allows some rather more ugly opinions to be aired.

Secondly, it means we can talk to people from all over the world and get insights we never would have got. Mudcat has proved invaluable in this respect, and I can honestly say my opinions on some matters have changed considerably since getting an alternative view from people who were there.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 06 Nov 08 - 05:18 AM

Here's a question for you, Wavy - how can it be a good way forward for humanity when humanity has rejected it wholesale as the heap of racist shit it most surely is?

Mind you, it makes about as much sense as The Book of Mormon, so maybe in time, the Book of Walkaboutsverse will acquire a similar status & mindless following - people are daft enough after all. But not this person, Wavy - so if it's not a good way forward for me, then how can it be a good way forward for humanity?

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 06 Nov 08 - 03:37 AM

Stigweard: as an "ordinary" - if well travelled and trained - person I maintain walkaboutsverse.741.com is a good way forward for humanity, hence I'm here.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Gervase
Date: 05 Nov 08 - 02:48 PM

Anyone else get the impression that this WankaboutsVerse is getting in the way of an interesting thread?

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 05 Nov 08 - 02:35 PM

And how would that be different from ordinary people talking in person?

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 05 Nov 08 - 06:11 AM

"Against capitalist migration, the UN did decree," (Brother)...and, whilst congratulating the new leader of one of the nations within our UN, Barack Obama, we should remember/realize that the head of the United Nations, since 01.01.2007, is Ban Ki-moon.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Stu
Date: 05 Nov 08 - 06:11 AM

"Don't see how internet forums like this are substantially different from the great minds of the 18th century corresponding by letter with each other"

The very great difference is that it's not the great minds of the 21st Century corresponding, but ordinary people.