02 Dec 2024 17:19:15
Just finished reading Patrick O Brian's historical novel " The Ioanian Mission" part of the Aubrey/ Maturin series about Nelson's Navy. There one bit which made me think about the "banter" on here and how the basics haven't changed much over the centuries. Captain Latham of HMS Surprise ( a sleek new frigate) feels obliged to sail past Lucky Jack Aubrey's ship HMS Worcester ( a leaking, badly designed and poorly built line of battle ship) shouting "friendly " banter about the comparative ships which Aubrey responds to in kind.
However, the lower decks are different and shout vile abuse from the open gun ports including loud bleating from the Worcester because the Captains steward on the Surprise ( a man with the suspiciously Welsh name of Morgan) had recently been court martialed ( and indeed executed) for bestiality with a sheep on board.
It's not so different with how we traditionally interact with our friends down the A52 is it? ???.
02 Dec 2024 19:10:13
Very good Stokey! Bit disappointed though that you have spoiled the story line of the very same book that I've just started reading. I won't bother carrying on with it now.
02 Dec 2024 19:51:39
It’s only a minor bit of the story Legless and doesn't affect the main plot. It’s a sideshow of a sideshow. What an incredible coincidence that of his 20 books ( plus half a dozen including a biography of Picasso) you are reading the one I’m reading. I mean, what are the chances of that mate ??????????
More to the point we’ve got Luton at home in the FA cup a repeat of the 1959 Final. By the way, did you know our beloved Reds have won the League Championship twice ie more than just Cloughies triumph on our first season back in the top flight.
02 Dec 2024 20:13:57
You're a top man Stokey. However, like DTP, I do love a wind-up now and again. I'm fibbing mate - of course I'm not reading that book! I just wanted to see if you'd react. Sorry my friend, but I do enjoy fishing at times!
However, being serious now, I've recently re-read Hard Times by Charles Dickens from the mid-1800's. Great book - but there was something that jumped out of the pages at me in a review at the back of the book which I hadn't noticed before. Written by a chap called Thomas Carlyle (a Victorian 'commentator'), I found it striking how his assessment of Victorian Britain at the time seems to be worryingly close to our society today. At least we have food banks for the needy nowadays, however. I'll let you decide:
"And yet I will venture to believe that in no time, since the
beginnings of Society, was the lot of those same dumb millions of toilers so entirely unbearable as it is even in the days now passing over us. It is not to die, or even to die of hunger, that makes a man wretched; many men have died; all men must die, -the last exit of us all is in a Fire-Chariot of Pain.
But it is to live miserable we know not why; to work sore and yet gain nothing; to be heart-worn, weary, yet isolated, unrelated, girt in with a cold universal Laissez-faire: it is to die slowly all our life long, imprisoned in a deaf, dead, Infinite Injustice".
02 Dec 2024 21:07:56
Wind-up ?? dtp would struggle winding a clock up ? and come on both of you. its like Roy croppers book club at minute ?.
02 Dec 2024 21:44:13
Are you sure it's only a minor bit? ??.
02 Dec 2024 21:50:36
Ice double bluffed you Legless. I knew you weren’t reading the same book hence the Pinocchio long nose emoji! Good try though mate. ?
I love Dickens and a few years back I set out to read or re read all of his writings including novels, speeches, short stories and newspapers articles. He was a great writer with a great sense of humour and ceaseless fire in his belly to alleviate the suffering of the Victorian working class. He walked the mean streets of London with the Police on patrol and his “Oliver Twist” was based on the reality of what he had witnessed of child exploitation, prostitution and crime.
A great great man and writer mate.
I love the Thomas Carlyle quote. He was one of many Victorian philosophers and philanthropists who saw the tremendous suffering beneath the glitz and glamour of the biggest Empire the world had ever seen. The great Scottish historian Professor Niall Ferguson became unfashionable because he espoused the benefits of the Empire beneath the squalor, for example the advance of education, sanitation, and the eradication of slavery. It was a bit like the old Monty Python sketch “ what have the Romans ever done for us”?. He uses Carlyle a lot and got shouted down for it. I heard Ferguson lecture once for the Reith lectures in London when he responded to one heckler with the words “ I’d rather be unfashionable and right than funky and wrong”. Then proceeded to produce facts, figures and writings from Carlyle and many others without notes, purely out of his head. Just brilliant…….
02 Dec 2024 21:57:24
I’ll get back to you on Forests previous League title Legless but have a google of the Victory Shield in 1919 mate ….
03 Dec 2024 12:20:30
In 1919 the Victory Shield competition for all League clubs was held to mark the resumption of football after the War ( hence Victory Shield). The clubs were split into 3 Leagues, North, Midlands and South as road transport was difficult and expensive with few cars or buses and the railways were tied up bringing millions of demobbed soldiers home.
The South, mainly the London clubs declined to participate instead having their own competition with 10 clubs.
Forest won the Midland section after 30 games and Everton won the North Section also after 30 games.
In the playoffs between the 2 Champions, the Reds drew nil nil at Goodison Park and won one nil at the City Ground hence were League Champions. Their reward was to be included in the First Division for the next season ( and a Shield Trophy). But it’s never been counted as a League Championship, perhaps because it was a practice run and 10 Southern Clubs didn’t participate.
Legless, if you are ever in London, mate, have a trip to Charles Dickens house ( now the Dickens Museum) at 48 to 49 Doughty Street off Meclenburg Square about 10 minutes walk ( or 5 minutes in your racing wheelchair) from Kings Cross Station. It’s a 5 story Georgian Town house in a posh bit of London. It has excellent disabled access ) including a lift) and a nice cafe in the servants quarters downstairs. It was where he wrote “Oliver Twist” and his writing desk, chair and pens etc are still there along with original features.
It has the additional bonus of being only ten minutes walk from the new British Library near St Pancras Station ( again excellent disabled facilities) where you can see everything fton the Magna Carta, original scripts of all the great British writers and poets plus exhibits like the cafe napkins where Lennon and McCartney scribbled down the lyrics for some of the Beatles classics including ( if I remember rightly) “Strawberry Fields” and “Norwegian Pine”.
Anyway book clubs over onto Manchester. Coyr!
03 Dec 2024 13:43:58
Norwegian Wood obviously. I’ve got Christmas Trees on the brain atm!
03 Dec 2024 16:01:26
Same old same old, the upper class regarding the working class as Factory and Cannon fodder and the working classes being enablers, touching their forlocks, like the 60, s song said, When will they ever learn!
Like most great writers Dickens great observer, sure he wanted to wake people up but as usual it did happen and time after time they are easily fooled.
Incidentally I believe his room at the old George Hotel is still the Dickens suite.
CARLO.
03 Dec 2024 17:36:23
Thanks for the heads-up Stokey. It sounds like a great place to visit. Will you please stop going on about my disability though? I assume you mean well but it makes me feel like a 2nd-class citizen.
03 Dec 2024 18:02:08
Yes apologies mate. I think it’s good to see responsible organisations carrying out due diligence. Long overdue in my opinion. ?.
03 Dec 2024 19:05:29
Stokey - ever get the feeling you've been 'ad? I knew I'd get you if I played the 'spaz-card' mate! Treble-bluff my friend.
Of course I appreciate your consideration of my circumstances. I hope you'll quickly realise if/ when we meet up on the 14th that I don't define myself by being physically disabled though. I'm still Al, albeit Legless at the same time! Unfortunately, I've met many disabled people who do define themselves as such and live their lives with a massive chip on their shoulder. I just tell these people that they should lighten-up and get on with living a positive life instead of moping and bitching about their circumstances. That often doesn't go down well, but if I can inspire just one disabled person to do a great thing that's good enough for me!
03 Dec 2024 19:45:26
Curses! You have me there Sir. Drat, double drat and treble drat. ………. ????.
03 Dec 2024 22:22:28
I bet you take a book to bed and the toilet
You should apply to go on who wants to be a millionaire, be a shoe in
Or the chase as chasers wouldn't stand a chance
Being serious here.
04 Dec 2024 13:22:56
I’m a bit in the dark about those shows you’ve just mentioned DTP. Never seen them. Are they quiz based?
I do take a book to bed sometimes but the loo is usually thinking time mate…… by the way there's a tremendous chapter in James Joyce’s stream of consciousness novel “Ulysses “ about a man having a dump. It’s a send up of the Iliad”. You should have a read of both and compare them.
Away from matters scatological my ideal reading environment is sitting doing so in front of a wood burner sipping from a good malt whiskey on a cold winters day. Man, that’s living …… ????.