BS: 1066 and all that

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Teribus
Date: 19 Oct 16 - 11:33 AM

"I thought your lords and masters had shot the lot" - Stu

Nope, guess you thought wrong - like most of the "socialist" fairy tales you believe Stu.

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Stu
Date: 19 Oct 16 - 10:38 AM

Teribus' post at: Date: 18 Oct 16 - 03:10 PM

About as big a pile of horse manure that will ever be written about the Acts of Inclosue. It's actually impressive in it's interpretation of the actual events; that sort of ability to bullshit takes no small degree of imagination. Say what you want about T, the lad's got talent.


"Habitat of Scolopax rusticola is woodland not open land available for public use."

Are there any Scolopax rusticola (italicise binomials Tezza!) actually left in this country? I thought your lords and masters had shot the lot and stuffed them up the harris of a goose (or something like that).

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 19 Oct 16 - 10:22 AM

From: Steve Shaw - PM
Date: 19 Oct 16 - 06:58 AM
landlordism is a thoroughly unjust, immoral and unfair phenomenon. Unjust because all their holdings were usurped either by them or their ancestors, land which they had no more right to "own" than anyone else.
So if no-one has a right to own land, then the persons from whom it has been 'usurped' can have no reason for complaint. Someone else has come along who wants to use the same land. The original users didn't own it.

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 19 Oct 16 - 09:53 AM

Isn't it time to forget who did what in the past and look towards how to improve things? A society that shares common resources on a more equitable basis than we do now be is certainly something for us all to strive for. What the past can teach us is that it should be evolution rather than revolution and we should not make the same mistakes over and over again.

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Teribus
Date: 19 Oct 16 - 07:22 AM

See nothing changes Raggy - still posting on subjects that you know S.F.A. about and displaying your ignorance.

Bye bye Teri If only

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Raggytash
Date: 19 Oct 16 - 07:01 AM

Eyes right, quick march, left right, left right, left right ........

Never doffed your cap?, It seems your whole existence has been predicated on obeying orders from your superiors. Don't question what the officer says.

What a pathetic way to lead a life and you are the epitome of such.

Bye bye, Teri.

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Oct 16 - 06:58 AM

I haven't got the time or inclination to discuss anything with dullards who want to go into the nuts and bolts of how we get coal out of the ground, etc. That is simply not the point. I am explaining in simple terms why I think that landlordism is a thoroughly unjust, immoral and unfair phenomenon. Unjust because all their holdings were usurped either by them or their ancestors, land which they had no more right to "own" than anyone else. Immoral because they profit hugely from the blood, sweat and tears, even the shortened lives, of the people who do all the work while they live in the lap of luxury. Unfair because they are depriving in large part the people they exploit from benefiting from the wealth that they alone create. The sense of entitlement this gives to the wealthy is staggering. Why, in the end it throws up the Russian oligarchs, the Trumps, the Maxwells, the Sir Freddie Goodwins and the Philip Greens of this world. Oh, and not forgetting BigEars.

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Teribus
Date: 19 Oct 16 - 06:52 AM

See what I mean about the eastern Atlantic version of Greg F.

What's the matter Raggy haven't you got anything at all to say? Are you so poor at backing up your side of the discussion?

Not aware of me having "doffed my cap" to anyone, as opposed to you lot of tooth sucking moaners muttering that it is "all someone else's fault and ain't life unfair" whilst crying into your pints whilst huddled together skulking in some dark corner.

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Raggytash
Date: 19 Oct 16 - 06:29 AM

LOL, take you on !?! I just cannot be bothered with trying to discuss anything with an intellectual midget.

I would suggest you carry on doffing your cap to the masters.

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Howard Jones
Date: 19 Oct 16 - 05:27 AM

That depends on who owns the mineral rights, which can be separate from ownership of the land itself. I think I'm correct in saying that in the UK coal is owned by the Coal Authority on behalf of the Crown ie the state, so Steve would need a licence from them to extract it which I assume he would have to pay for.

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 19 Oct 16 - 03:56 AM

If you have indeed dug the coal ...................... then of course you are fully entitled to the rewards. However that presupposes you have the resources to acquire the land,

Even if you own the land, your neighbours may be mining it underneath you. Are they stealing your coal or are they entitled to the rewards for the effort they have put in?

"The meek shall inherit the earth, but not its mineral rights."
— attributed to Jean Paul Getty


DC

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Teribus
Date: 19 Oct 16 - 03:27 AM

Where did I get it from Shaw? Same place I get all of my information when discussing any historical topic from historical works concerning the events or the period, great shame that you do not do the same instead of relying on your spoon fed and totally inaccurate "socialist myths and stereotypes". You and your pals here might fall for that ullage as being part and parcel of your adoption of the politics of envy that you have clearly displayed here.

I note that you do not challenge or counter anything I have said, but there again you never do - you do not have the knowledge or the facts at your command to do so - same goes for your little group of sycophants. Raggy has long since abandoned any attempt to take me on, on detail, his knowledge has been shown to be lacking too many times, so he has now converted himself into an eastern Atlantic version of Greg F.


So tell us all Shaw what other than an agreed rent do tenant farmers pay to the owners of the land they farm?

What land or property has our current Head of State "stolen" or acquired by "dishonest means"? If you believe she has then it is your duty to report the matter to the police.

Nutwood Common? See your knowledge of natural history is about as good as your knowledge of any other history - sadly lacking - Habitat of Scolopax rusticola is woodland not open land available for public use.

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Howard Jones
Date: 19 Oct 16 - 02:57 AM

If you have indeed dug the coal or grown the wheat for yourself then of course you are fully entitled to the rewards. However that presupposes you have the resources to acquire the land, and purchase the machinery, equipment and materials, and possibly pay for someone to assist you. If not, then you must pay rent for the land, interest on the capital, and wages for the labour. All these factors have contributed to the production, and all are entitled to be rewarded. What is left over is your profit. This is basic economics.

I don't deny that the balance between these factors can be unequal and that sometimes one of them is in a position to exploit another, and all too often that has been the workers providing the labour. However that is not always the case, and there are plenty of examples where labour has the whip hand, perhaps because of a shortage of the necessary skills which allows them to charge more, or because unionisation has given them greater clout.

There have been, indeed still are, economies where people work the land they or their ancestors hacked out of the wilderness. They are invariably amongst the poorest in the world. It was breaking away from that model which allowed us to create the affluent society we live in today, where even the poorest are better housed, clothed and fed than their ancestors could have dreamt of.

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Oct 16 - 07:38 PM

Ah yes, the Enid Blyton take on Little England. I knew it! D'ye think that Woodcock lives somewhere on Nutwood Common? 😂😂😂

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Raggytash
Date: 18 Oct 16 - 07:30 PM

Noddy and Big Ears told him.

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Oct 16 - 03:47 PM

Where did you get that lot from, Hans Christian Andersen or Grimm? 😂😂😂

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Teribus
Date: 18 Oct 16 - 03:10 PM

"The people who work their backs to improve the land are not landlords. They are ordinary working people. They are entitled to expect that the fruits of their efforts will be used one hundred percent for their benefit, not for the benefit of someone who lives in a distant mansion on a massive private estate who already has more money than he knows what to do with." - Steve Shaw

Back to the mythical "socialist" stereotypes.

Those ordinary working people pay rent or have a lease on the farms where they use the land to produce whatever their farm might produce. And guess what Shaw? Not only are they currently entitled to 100% of the profits of the "fruits of their labours" after of course they have paid whatever tax they should to another load of parasites called the elected Government and the Treasury. What these ordinary working people do not have to pay are the land taxes for the land they farm and when they die as we all have to they do not have to pay death duties on the value of the property they farm. The owners of it however do have to pay it.

But let's have a look at this "socialist" stereotype that Shaw believes exists. According to his "politics of envy script" these people have been unscrupulously exploiting and beating down the ordinary working people Since 1066 apparently. So successful have they been in this endeavour according to Shaw that by now there must be at least 30 of these super-rich parasites for every single "ordinary working person" in the country - after all they've held all the power and they've made all the rules. Of course the stereotype that Shaw believes in doesn't exist - It is all total, complete and utter bollocks.

Someone up above in this thread mentioned the "enclosures" and he and Shaw immediately assumed that it was the aristocracy who "stole" land, you know those land owning parasites living in "a distant mansion on a massive private estate who already has more money than he knows what to do with."- but of course they didn't, by and large, in the wake of the "black death" they already had all the land that they could manage and cope with. And large tracts of "common land" lay idle for centuries. The people who took over that land were the rich yeoman farmers, in a bid to expand their earning potential and wealth beyond what they already earned from working as tenant farmers for the aristocracy, it also gave them title to land of their own. Yep Steve the class responsible were not those land owning parasites living in a distant mansion on a massive private estate who already has more money than he knows what to do with. - It was the class that has achieved the greatest and most permanent and meaningful social and political changes throughout history - the "middle-class".

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Raggytash
Date: 18 Oct 16 - 05:59 AM

Some of you may want to recall that it was only after a mass trespass in 1932 that the public obtained access to vast tracts of land previously deemed as private.

"no man has the right to own mountains
anymore than the deep ocean bed"

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Oct 16 - 05:43 AM

Do tell us more about your "communist" lady friend, cricket-stumps.

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Oct 16 - 05:37 AM

No-one made a lump of coal or a grain of wheat, but if I've dug up that coal for myself, or spent months carefully cultivating that wheat, all by my own efforts, they're mine. Likewise, if I've worked a piece of land by my own efforts, improved it, looked after the hedges and the drainage and manured the soil, I'm entitled to benefit from the fruits of my labours and to continue to work that land. But I'm its steward, not its owner, and my descendants have the same obligations. The people who work their backs to improve the land are not landlords. They are ordinary working people. They are entitled to expect that the fruits of their efforts will be used one hundred percent for their benefit, not for the benefit of someone who lives in a distant mansion on a massive private estate who already has more money than he knows what to do with. Of course we need organisation and managers to bring efficiency to our endeavours in this crowded world, and there should be many a squabble as to how that should best be achieved. What we don't need is leeches in palaces siphoning off wealth that's being created by someone else, or the feeling that we're working for the good of remote "shareholders" who don't even know where we are and whose income far exceeds ours, even though they never lift a spade. These are obstacles to motivation. And they are why we need trade unions.

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: BobL
Date: 18 Oct 16 - 03:27 AM

"Not one square inch ... was made by them"

Neither was a lump of coal, nor an ounce of iron ore, nor a grain of wheat ever "made" by anyone. If you trace the supply chain back far enough, all materials are free - the cost lies in digging them out, smelting them, growing them, processing them, transporting them. Does that affect anyone's right to own them? And at work I got paid for the use of "my" time, of which I couldn't create so much as a second.

How is land any different?

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Stu
Date: 18 Oct 16 - 03:19 AM

Communists? The Diggers more like! The wonderful Luddites and Swing Rioters (one of my ancestors was had up in court as a Swing Rioter)! The Chartists and the Putney Debates!

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 18 Oct 16 - 03:04 AM

The lady I work with, a communist from North Vietnam, laughs at the constant British Communist madness from the loonie left!!

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Teribus
Date: 18 Oct 16 - 02:29 AM

Not at all Shaw - first problem with your assumption that land ownership system is based on theft:

1: Proof of previous ownership? You have some sort of idiotic notion that the land somehow belongs by right to "the people" - it doesn't and it never has the land has only ever been temporarily in the hands of those strong enough to hold it and down through the ages since the days of small groups of "hunter gatherers" that ownership has continually changed.

2: Start at the top with the Queen everything she owns she inherited from her parents or she bought herself - Sandringham and Balmoral were bought and paid for by Queen Victoria and her husband - so tell me where is the theft.

What I defend is the law of the land and the rights of property which are the same for me as they are for the Duke of Westminster. I do not envy any other person for what they own or have in this life, it does not concern me. I most certainly do not wish to diminish or take away anything from anybody on the basis of some idiotic ideology.

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Oct 16 - 09:02 PM

I'd say that you were actually the most backward-looking person in this thread. You are defending a centuries-old land ownership system based on theft that is both unjust and thoroughly outdated.

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Teribus
Date: 17 Oct 16 - 10:51 AM

Have fun living in whatever century you think we're in. I am quite happy with the 21st.

Is this something "Leader Corbyn" insists on he has a fondness for looking backwards as well.

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Stu
Date: 17 Oct 16 - 10:46 AM

Howard: thanks for the information on land ownership, fascinating stuff. That all land derives from the Crown was established by the Normans though... as far as I understand.

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Oct 16 - 09:45 AM

No landowner has ever improved his land. All the improving was done by the people who put their backs into the digging, the hedging and the planting. The landowner came round once in a while on horseback to check that the men were making as much profit for him as possible and keeping in line, but he certainly never acquired a callus or two, except maybe on his arse. Oh yes, he might have built some tied houses and put money into the chapel (that he expected to see his men kneeling in once a week) and built a village hall, to demonstrate publicly what a beneficent fellow he was. But those high rents he charged and the tithes he arranged to collect for church or state were a strain on the workers, who were kept suitably poor, and if the harvest was bad you can be sure that the landlord wasn't the one who suffered. The tithe was a tax all right, paid in goods, but the rent is no less a tax, charged on land that the landlord did not make.

Here's the mindset, Teribus, that still obtains to this day. If you, or your ancestors, were powerful or aggressive enough to take common land, or any land, and have it exploited for your own profit, it automatically makes you a fit and proper person with all the knowledge and wisdom it takes to manage that land to the best of its potential. Well I don't think it does. We end up with vast tracts of land closed off so that the rich can enjoy their "estates" without interference from the hoi polloi and even vaster tracts of land and rivers where they can go and shoot at silly birds or catch salmon, that the rest of us, were we to try it, might have us thrown in prison for or fined for "poaching." And we end up with badly-farmed near-prairies of thousands of acres, growing barley that's fit only for animal fodder for which yer man receives massive subsidies. Insane.

And, once again, the unanswerable point is that not one square inch of any of the land closed off by these parasites was made by them. If I make something from materials that I've paid for, it's mine, and it's all to the good if I can sell it with added value. If I forcibly take something that I didn't make, it's theft, and that can't be mitigated by the passing of centuries.

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Teribus
Date: 17 Oct 16 - 08:58 AM

Considering the content of your posts to this thread Shaw you are the last one to talk about Comedic interventions

These down trodden tenant farmers you prattle on about. They pay a straightforward rent for the land they work. They do not have to provide any labour or services to those they lease their land from and apart from their taxes they do not have to part with any portion of the profits they make from their labour - That Mr. Shaw is the reality. Now tell us from what font of knowledge did you get the pearl that all those "squires, landlords, princes and the like, ...., are actually parasites on the people who work the land for them. They don't work themselves" - Not true is it.

"Their landed wealth is their power, yet not one of them ever made one square inch of that land. They don't even improve it - that's done by their tenants."

Ever heard of the Agricultural Revolution Shaw? It was the landowners who improved the land it was the landowners who paid for those improvements and developments - it was their tenants who benefitted from those improvements.

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Howard Jones
Date: 17 Oct 16 - 08:47 AM

Stu, whilst it is true that our system of land tenure originates from the Norman feudal system you seem to be ignoring nearly a thousand years of legal development, including the Law of Property Act 1925.

A freehold tenure of land gives you absolute ownership of it. It is not owned by the Queen, or even the Crown (they are not the same). As a legal technicality, all title in land derives from the Crown ie the state. However this is only relevant when the true owner of a piece of land cannot be found (for example, if they have died intestate with no heirs), when ownership reverts to the Crown.

Anglo-Saxon society wasn't that much different from Norman feudalism. There was still a social hierarchy, and whilst more classes may have nominally owned land there was also a similar system of obligations attached to it. The Normans' system was perhaps more rigid, but nevertheless it eventually broke down through economic and social pressures.

The Norman invasion undoubtedly changed the course of English history. As with any invasion, the immediate aftermath was pretty horrific (although the preceding period was hardly peaceful). Whether in the long term that change was for better or worse is impossible to say.

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 17 Oct 16 - 08:30 AM

I don't disagree that the aristocracy are "actually parasites on the people who work the land for them". However, I suggest that, if the Normans had never arrived, we would still have parasites but they would trace their ancestry back to rich and powerful Anglo-Saxons.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Oct 16 - 07:34 AM

Comedic intervention from Teribus

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Oct 16 - 07:27 AM

Ignoring that last comedic intervention, I don't think anyone's saying that William wiped out a golden age. What I think some of us are saying is that squires, landlords, princes and the like, whose ancestors did not come by their massive holdings via honest means, are actually parasites on the people who work the land for them. They don't work themselves yet they take a cut, a healthy one at that, enough to make them far wealthier than their workers, sufficient to keep their tenants poor enough to be beholden to them. Their landed wealth is their power, yet not one of them ever made one square inch of that land. They don't even improve it - that's done by their tenants.

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Stu
Date: 17 Oct 16 - 07:20 AM

Nice to see you've kept your sense of humour T (for my part it was all supposed to be a bit lighthearted). Good posts from both Nigel and Doug though, as you say.


"Pre-Norman England was hardly a golden age."

It certainly wasn't, but the abolition of slavery was in name only as the land that was at least divided up between the various kingdoms was owned by the people that lived there. The Bastard stole all of that land and then allocated territories to his various buddies to keep them sweet; he harried and killed that didn't kowtow to him and put villages and farms to the torch. He killed tens of thousands (Cheshire was utterly laid to waste, for example). Serfdom was slavery.

Brenda still owns all the land in England (not so sure about Wales and Scotland) and we are tenants on that land, because of the invasion. So if you believe that sort of thing, every rock and sod in England is not owned by the people that live here, but by one person of privilege. So the crux of the matter is whether you are happy if one person 'owns' this land or not, and if the answer is 'yes', that you are willing to be subservient to that person and the system that designates them and others as the rightful owners of the land. If you do, then you're happy to live under a feudal system that was imposed upon this country by an invader and legitimise his actions.

When was the golden age of the ordinary slave/serf/ag lab in this country? There's never been one.

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Teribus
Date: 17 Oct 16 - 02:54 AM

Good posts there from Nigel Parsons and Doug Chadwick, unfortunately both will find that injecting common sense, logic and reason coupled to fact gets you nowhere in discussion with the likes of Steve Shaw and Stu.

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 16 Oct 16 - 10:42 PM

Isn't it time we got rid of these spongers and gave the land back to the people they stole it from?

.....................

No more tenant farmers whose blood, sweat and tears goes into the coffers of the landed gentry.

Was pre-Norman English society all that egalitarian? Harold wasn't the unpaid chairman of a local community association - he was king and had all the privileges that came with it. The Sutton Hoo ship burial wasn't for one of your every-day Anglo-Saxons. It was for a man of great wealth and power.

The various kingdoms that came to make up England each had their kings, aeldermen, thanes, ceorls and slaves. The wittan, as a council of advisors, could choose the king (or even replace him with another in exceptional circumstances) but it was made up of the elite in society and it generally chose the king from the strongest in the wider royal family. Most of us would be ceorls, but even this level had it class structure with landed gentry, tenant farmers and peasant labourers. All of those would have to give service in some form, including military, to the local lord in return for his protection. Below them were the thoews or slaves. It was the Normans, in the year 1102, who abolished slavery in medieval England.

Pre-Norman England was hardly a golden age.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: robomatic
Date: 16 Oct 16 - 08:19 PM

"The.........French?"

The Normans weren't French, they were vikings.

Vikings who spoke French, n'est'ce pas?

or have I got that wrong. The news travels so slow, you know.

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 16 Oct 16 - 01:00 PM

Today sees the 950th Anniversary of the Battle of Hastings, when Harold was beaten by William the Bastard and English rule came to an end in their own land. Nearly a millennia on, we still live under a norman feudal system and our aristocracy is pretty much the same bunch of interlopers as then.
It's all summed up by this quote the late Duke of Westminster gave to the FT:
"An FT reporter, working through a standard set of questions, once asked him what advice he'd give to young entrepreneurs keen to emulate his success.
"Make sure they have an ancestor who was a very close friend of William the Conqueror," he replied."
Hilarious. Isn't it time we got rid of these spongers and gave the land back to the people they stole it from? After that, time to reverse the thieving Acts of Enclosure!

If all the land in England (please leave Wales out of this silliness)was divided into parcels so that each current resident had an equal share, no-one would have sufficient land to grow arable crops in a reasonable manner. No-one would have enough room to keep a cow. And no-one would have enough time to do any paid labour as they would have to arrange their own food supplies, water supplies, drainage & removal of sewage & waste.
As a country, England would have to import nearly all the food it required, and would rapidly find itself unable to pay for imports (no massive tracts of land for industries, or for the City of London).
England would be broke & dying.
In order to survive, people would have to arrange a form of barter (No 'Royal' Mint) for the few crops they could raise, and for the supply of their services to their neighbours. Eventually, some of the more shrewd members of the nation would make better bargains, and find ways to combine plots of land, until eventually we might get back to something like we have today.
It would probably take something like the "a millennia" mentioned in the opening post.

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Oct 16 - 07:33 AM

Well I certainly don't like the thought that they may be the same species as me.

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: banjoman
Date: 16 Oct 16 - 06:57 AM

I feel that its not about who pays their taxes voluntarily or is funded from the civil list.
To me its about the principle that certain people enjoy elevated status simply because of who their parents were, taking into account that much of what the parents "Own" was acquired by force and gunboat diplomacy.
I once knew someone who had worked as a servant in a royal household (Charlie I think0 and they were left in no doubt that these people believed that they were a different species put on this earth to rule over us mere mortals.
There probably isn't a solution other than civil unrest and uprising but I am too old for that now

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 16 Oct 16 - 05:29 AM

Am I reading ludicrous attempts at British Communism here?

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Stu
Date: 16 Oct 16 - 04:18 AM

"The.........French?"

The Normans weren't French, they were vikings.

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: robomatic
Date: 15 Oct 16 - 11:38 PM

On this side of the pond, we're busy renaming Columbus Day "Indigenous Peoples' Day".

So with that background, I'm leery of offering congrats on Battle of Hastings. Who would the Congrats be to? Normans, the English Language, certain Lords and Ladies? The.........French?

So I think I'll just send best wishes to England entire and congratulations on a successful observance 'any way you want to observe it'.

Maybe you need the kind of monument with two sides on it like that one on a Hawaii Beach which commemorates the life of Captain Cook on one side, and the noble people who boiled his skin off his bones on the other.

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Stu
Date: 15 Oct 16 - 07:14 AM

"Do you mean Charles' ancestors or William's descendants?"

Hmmm.

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Will Fly
Date: 15 Oct 16 - 03:44 AM

Bloody Romans - taking all that land from the Celts...

Bloody Saxons - taking all that land from the Romans...

And as for the Normans - just don't get me started.

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Padre
Date: 14 Oct 16 - 10:48 PM

Here's my favorite bit of "poetry" about October 14, 1066:

I'll tell of the Battle of 'astings,
   As 'appened in days long gone by,
When Duke William became King of England
   And 'arold got shot in the eye.

'Twere this way: one day in October
   The Duke, who were always a toff,
'aving no battles on at the moment,
   'ad given all 'is lads t' day off.

They'd all took some boats t' go fishing,
   When some chap in t' Conqueror's ear,
Says, "Eh, let's go an put breeze up t' Saxons."
   Said Bill, "Bugger me, That's an idea."

Then turning around to his soldiers,
   He lifted his great Norman voice,
Said, " 'ands up, who's going to England,"
   That were swank, as they 'adn't no choice.

So they all set sail about teatime,
   And t' sea were so calm and so still
'at quarter to ten the next morning
They arrived at a place called Bex Hill.

When 'arold 'ad saw that they'd landed,
   'e came up with venom and hate,
Saying, "If tha's come for regatta,
   Tha's come 'ere a fortnight too late."

But William arose, cool and haughty,
   And said, "Give us none of your cheek,
And you'd best have your throne reupholstered,
   I'll be wanting to use it next week."

When 'arold heard this here defiance
With rage, he turned purple and blue,
And shouted some rude words in Saxon
To which William answered "And you!"

It were a beautiful day for a battle,
The Normans set off with a will,
And when they'd all duly assembled,
   They tossed for the top of the 'ill.

King 'arold, 'e won the advantage,        
   On t' 'illtop 'e took up 'is stand,
With 'is knaves and 'is cads all around 'im,
   On 'is 'orse, with 'is 'awk in 'is 'and.

Now, the Normans had nowt in their favour,
Their chance for a victory were small,
For t' slope of t' field were agin' 'em
And t' wind in their faces, and all.

The kickoff was sharp at 2:30,
   And as soon as the whistle 'ad went
Both sides started bashing each other,
   Till the swineherds could 'ear 'em in Kent.

The Saxons 'ad best line of forwards,
   Well armed with buckler and sword,
But t' Normans 'ad best combination,
   So when 'alftime come neither 'ad scored.

Then t' Duke called 'is cohorts together,
   And said, "Let's pretend that we're beat,
And when we get Saxons on level,
   We can cut off their means of retreat."

So they ran and the Saxons ran after,
   Just exactly as William 'ad planned,
Leaving 'arold alone on the 'illtop,
   On 'is 'orse, with 'is 'awk in 'is 'and.

When William 'ad saw what 'ad 'appened,
   'is bow and an arrow 'e drew,
'E went straight up to 'arold and shot 'im,
   --'E were offside, but what could they do?

Then Normans turned round with a fury,
   And gave back both parry and thrust,
Till battle were all over bar shouting,
   And you couldn't see Saxons for dust.

And after the battle were over,
   There, sitting so stately and grand,
Was 'arold, with eyeful of arrow,
   On 'is 'orse, with 'is 'awk in 'is 'and.

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Oct 16 - 01:13 PM

Well they're all foreigners. We should have "taken back control" centuries ago. 😂

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 14 Oct 16 - 01:01 PM

Do you mean Charles' ancestors or William's descendants?

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Oct 16 - 12:44 PM

Why, how nice of him. His tenants pay rent for farming land that was usurped by his ancestors, who did not make a single square foot of that land. Landlordism is one of the biggest evils on the planet*. The landlord himself doesn't have to work the land, but he will charge rent, as much as he possibly can without breaking the law or making his tenants squeal. He is, in effect, taxing the efforts of his tenants, who are probably also paying tax to the Exchequer. In the case of BigEars, as we know he is paying tax voluntarily "out of the goodness of his heart," while his tenant, who is working his socks off (if he doesn't, he won't be able to pay his rent or his taxes), has no option but to pay up. Now these exploits of this particular landlord yield "profits," whereas the tenant farmer, were he to be released from his tenancy, would be making a living. And he would look after the land a lot better than he did as a tenant, after all, he will stand or fall on how well he farms it. Now those "profits" that the tenants made for the landlord will enable him to spend months every year on private islands in the tropics, or shooting silly birds on vast estates that the rest of us are kept off, or catching salmon in rivers that, if we were caught doing the same thing, would have us branded criminals, or spending long tracts of time on his own or his mother's walled estates, out of view, where he will be looked after by an army of servants. Never mind that neither he nor his ancestors made any of that estate land or caused a single drop of the water in those lovely rivers to flow.

*That great self-sufficiency guru, John Seymour, a man who was in many ways even more right-wing than Teribus (is that possible?), sarcastically wrote that he loved landlords so much that he'd like to see many more of them, millions in fact, every one of them lord of his own piece of land, and ONLY his own piece of land.

You have misrepresented the financial affairs of BigEars, by the way, and I think you know it. I'll get back to you. I'm a bit busy now.

Subject: RE: BS: 1066 and all that
From: Teribus
Date: 14 Oct 16 - 11:48 AM

Reading what Steve Shaw writes with regard to the Royal Family and the Duchy of Cornwall does really provide a perfect example of that old saying - Ignorance is bliss.

85% of the profits from the Crown Estate go directly to the Treasury, the other 15% pay for the official expenses or our Head of State and for the upkeep of the Head of States official residences. (~£320 million to the Exchequer - Head of State doesn't cost the tax payer a single penny)

The profits from the Duchy of Lancaster pay for expenses of the Royal Family excluding the expenses of the Prince of Wales and his family and the remaining profits are taxed. (~£4 million to the Exchequer - the Royal family doesn't cost the tax payer a single penny)

The profits from the Duchy of Cornwall pay for the expenses of the Prince of Wales and his family and the remaining profits are taxed. (~£6 million to the Exchequer - The Prince of Wales and his family doesn't cost the tax payer a single penny)

"Prince BigEars, makes massive profits out of the efforts of his tenants."

How? I take it that those tenants only pay an agreed rent as they would do to any other landlord, or Council? So what makes paying rent to the Duchy of Cornwall any different?

As for paying tax voluntarily, IIRC going back to the days of the Black Prince, by Act of Parliament, the Prince of Wales as Duke of Cornwall is exempt from tax - Prince Charles volunteered to pay tax off his own volition decades ago.