Which do you think I should choose?

Well, if you want to be topical rather than just seasonal, you could go for this rather distasteful toilet decor:



... but I do like the white porcelein pussy-cat that's in three of your pics. Much nicer than Trump anyway.

ferval wrote:

Which do you think I should choose?

Good grief, ferval, what are you thinking? What on earth would be William Hanson's response to these Yuletide toilet abominations? Hanson is an "etiquette expert" writing for the Daily Mail and he, oddly enough, published the following article in the Mail only yesterday. This expert advises, warns us indeed, what our toilets/loos/lavatories - please insert your own preferred word here - reveal about us and our social class. I am somewhat mortified to learn that, according to Hanson, I am lower-middle-class (the most despised class in England?). This is because I have actually had in my bathroom since Thursday a bottle of Baylis and Harding (see below) Midnight Fig and Pomegranate Limited Edition handwash. This telling purchase was made for several reasons: a) I like the idea of figs and pomegranates - very exotic - although why figs should be associated with midnight particularly beats me; b) it smells really nice; c) it was on offer in Sainsbury's for £1.50, which is much cheaper than the stuff Molton Brown flogs for £15 in their dead posh shop in Exeter. That said, I have bought a Christmas bottle of Molton Brown's strangely named Tobacco Road shower gel for a friend who is trying, alas with little success, to give up smoking.  

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3341392/Etiquette-expert-reveals-lavatory-says-social-standing.html#ixzz3tLeYJscc

From Hanson's article:

Floris is very upper (notice the warrant); Jo Malone is seen in the upper-middle houses; Molton Brown belongs to the middle classes, Bayliss and Harding to the lower-middles and the bottom will usually use a supermarket own brand.

But is Floris still posher than Molton Brown? Along with my religious doubts (see next post), this is something I am agonising over. I think Floris still reigns supreme, certainly for older people, but wait - confusingly Molton Brown have just been awarded a royal warrant -  which must mean something, at least in Daily Mail land.

 

This posh shower gel, aimed at the foolish middle classes, sells for an astounding £20 a bottle - and probably costs about 75p to produce. Clever label though - and the Queen obviously gives this stuff to everyone at Christmas, as well as some of that nice Floris soap, of course.

PS Personally - if someone made me choose - I'd go for the complete Santa set (top right).

Right - a serious post now.

Ferval, on the Daily Rant thread recently you mentioned the renegade ex-Bishop of Edinburgh, Richard Holloway. I don't know why, but I had never come across this man until I read of him in your post. I have just finished reading Holloway's book, Leaving Alexandria: a Memoir of Faith and Doubt, which he published in 2012. I cannot tell you how moved I was by his writing - hence my mentioning it here on the Daily Rave thread. It was a great comfort to me to read of the Bishop's struggles which, as I suspect you had realised when you mentioned him, have been - indeed are - so very like my own. So thank you - really - for alerting me to RH's work.

I want to quote a couple of things from Alexandria - although there is so much in the book (expressed often with a lovely, wry humour) that speaks directly to me.

Here's a bit I liked:

"To be fair to the person I was then, I did not yet know myself. We live our lives forward and understand ourselves backward, but I had not lived long or reflectively enough to know who I was. In particular I had not unravelled the complexity of my attitude towards religion. I knew I was not an atheist. The invincible thing about atheists and what gives them coherence is that they refuse to accept any explanation for the riddle of existence that comes from outside the universe. For them there is no Outside. There is the universe and only the universe. It alone is available for our explorations. And no god has been discovered within it. What I did not know then was that I was not quite a theist either. The invincible thing about theists and what gives them coherence is that they take their search for explanations about the riddle of the universe right outside the universe, and that is where they find the solution they are looking for. It is their confidence that makes these apparently opposing positions so interchangeable, with a stream of thinkers switching from one position to the other with equal conviction. I am used to theists who once were atheists and atheists who once were theists challenging my uncertainties. Confidently sure of themselves, they tell me they sorted the issue years ago: 'We called the chess board white - we call it black'. At that time I had not yet discovered I could not settle permanently on either square. I knew I was religious. With Emily Dickinson, I felt this world was not conclusive. With Ludwig Wittgenstein, I accepted to be religious 'is to know the facts of the world are not the end of the matter', and that 'even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all...' "*

What struck me particularly is that in the final chapter of the book, as he describes how in 2000 he left the Church, Holloway sums up what you and MM and, of course, nordmann have expressed so eloquently over on the ill-fated Religion the Benefits thread - but his final words also have echoes of my position (and maybe Priscilla's, although I must not presume that). He sort of speaks for us all here - I think:

"Like other human enterprises, religion grew out of the human predicament. We are thinking animals. We may even be the only thinking creature in the unimaginable vastness of the universe, which means that in us the universe is thinking about itself...And we can't stop doing it. It comes with these big, self-conscious brains of ours from which come science and philosophy. And art! Art is what our imagination has conjured up to express the wonder and terror of life: the stories we have told ourselves, the dreams we have dreamt, the longings and fears we have woven together. And the great gallimaufry we call religion is one of art's greatest imaginings.

Religion is human and like humanity it is both a glory and a scandal. If only we could stop using it as if it had any more authority than Shakespeare or Proust or Elgar or Gauguin or Tolstoy or Nietzsche! It belongs with them, with its yearnings and crucifying certainties. It was human, all-too human. Don't abandon it, any more than we ought to abandon the other great flawed cruel epics of the human imagination: but don't listen to its mad voices..."

So that bit is for you, ferval, and for MM and for nord - and yes, for me too - but then, near the very end of his book, he adds this little bit which is probably just for me (and maybe Priscilla):

"I am left in the ruined house listening for the whisper. 'This world is not conclusion,' said Emily Dickinson. I know that too. I am tugged still by the possibility of the transcendent. But only whispers and tugs; nothing louder or more violent. Religion's insecurity makes it shout not whisper, strike with a fist in the face, not tug gently with the fingers on the sleeve. yet beneath the shouting and the striking, the whisper can sometimes be heard. And from a great way off the tiny figure of Jesus can be seen on the seashore, kindling a fire."

And that, I suppose, is as good a way as any for me to end. Sorry about the great long quotations, especially as it's all about religious stuff again, but I wanted - needed - to post this - not least to say thank you about Holloway. We read to know we are not alone said C. S. Lewis - sorry, not the most popular name around here, I know -  but reading Holloway has certainly made me feel less alone.



*Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Notebooks and The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

PS Ferval - I have altered my post a bit - adding, I'm afraid, more quotation from your Scottish ex-bishop. I hope you read my edited version.

PPS I have also learnt a new word from the above extract: gallimaufry. It means a muddle or a hotchpotch, but it originally meant a meaty stew or hash (as, indeed, did hotchpotch).

Origin of GALLIMAUFRY

Middle French galimafree stew
First Known Use: circa 1556

Re. gallimaufry: the date of circa 1556 must be when it was first used in English, but as galimafree it appears in the medieval collection of recipes (the Sion Manuscript) written c.1350 by 'Taillevent' (Guillaume Tirel) who was chef to King Charles V of France. This work was put into print as 'Le Viandier de Taillevent' in 1486, making it probably the first published French cookbook.

Galimafree
Pour galimafree soyent prinses poulailles ou chappons rons & tailles par pieces et apres fris a sain de lart / ou doye et quant sera frit y soit mis vin & vert ius & pour espices mettes en la pouldre de gingembre & pour la lier cameline & du sel par raison.

'Le Viandier de Taillevent' (1486) p24.

... chopped pieces of chicken or capon fried and then cooked in a thickened spicy sauce: it's almost a chicken tikka masala. I think in Britain as gallaumfrey it was usually made with bits of mutton or beef. The name seems to derive from the Old French verb galer, to eat well/to eat a lot/to make merry. So quite suitable for la fête de Noël, non?



PS (and it is a bit of a late addition) but,

Temperance (quoting Holloway) wrote:

Religion is human and like humanity it is both a glory and a scandal. If only we could stop using it as if it had any more authority than Shakespeare or Proust or Elgar or Gauguin or Tolstoy or Nietzsche! It belongs with them, with its yearnings and crucifying certainties. It was human, all-too human. Don't abandon it, any more than we ought to abandon the other great flawed cruel epics of the human imagination: but don't listen to its mad voices..."

Oh how I so agree. But unfortunately we are not permitted to treat the word of God in the same way that we are allowed to treat the word of Shakespeare, ... or the music of Elgar or the art of Gauguin. So good luck with that idea!

MM wrote:

PS (and it is a bit of a late addition) but,

Temperance (quoting Holloway) wrote:

Religion is human and like humanity it is both a glory and a scandal. If only we could stop using it as if it had any more authority than Shakespeare or Proust or Elgar or Gauguin or Tolstoy or Nietzsche! It belongs with them, with its yearnings and crucifying certainties. It was human, all-too human. Don't abandon it, any more than we ought to abandon the other great flawed cruel epics of the human imagination: but don't listen to its mad voices...

Oh how I so agree ... But if only we were truely allowed to treat the word of God in the same way that we treat the word of Shakespeare, the music of Elgar or the art of Gauguin. Good luck with that idea!

Who or what is stopping us from so treating it? I've been arguing for such an approach for ages - see my comments on the Golden Age thread. Tim considered I was quite wrong when I suggested we should read the NT as we read Shakespeare, and nordmann, annoyed, if I remember correctly, because I was wittering on about Pontius Pilate, told me to take myself off elsewhere (to be fair, he later apologised in a PM), but that was so typical of what always happens to me when I argue about religion: I manage to antagonise atheists and theists alike.

But what the heck, that's life; and I shall keep fighting the fundies for what I believe is the truth about how the NT came to be written - and how those passionately sincere Jewish writers meant it to be read. And Richard Holloway is now definitely my new hero after Richard III. I seem to have a thing about misunderstood men called Richard.

I'm off to see Shaun the Sheep now at our local film club. And don't anyone say how appropriate.

PS Seriously - re the NT being great Jewish literature, but not actually sent by fax direct from God to Saint Paul and his associates, maybe I'll post something tomorrow on Tim's "Jesus is a Myth" Myth thread about this idea. But then again maybe I won't - it's a subject that fascinates me; but I acknowledge it's not of much interest to others. Anyway, time for Shaun now.

Well if you need more ovine support I can always put everyone on my 'Shawn-the-sheep' chess-set at your disposal:




OK, and before you all start commenting, yes white usually moves first, and yet indeed in the above pic black has already made two moves. But they're sheep ok ... sheep sometimes wander.

MM, this is part of what I wrote on the Golden Age thread on August 13th 2013. My post was in reply to Tim. I regret that I refer to nordmann as "the Benevolent One" here - it was not meant at all nastily, but it was inappropriate silliness on a serious thread:

Temperance wrote:

Actually, speaking as a mere woman who should really keep silent while these religious matters are debated, I have to say that, contrary to what you might think, I can fully appreciate the Benevolent One's argument. He is an historian and, as an historian, he is quite correct: the historical evidence for Pilate's involvement in the trial of Christ is pretty thin. But then the historical evidence for most of the New Testament is also pretty thin - or, indeed, is quite suspect. (See Robin Lane Fox's book: The Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible,, mentioned above, and Diarmaid MacCulloch's A History of Christianity) But that doesn't matter!

But then you see, Tim, for me, woolly and confused High Church Anglican Agnostic Gnostic that I am, the narratives of the NT have nothing whatsoever to do with evidence and "history" at all. I think the exchanges between you and nordmann (fascinating and informative as they are) over whether Pilate - indeed whether Christ - ever existed miss the whole point, relevance and profundity of the stories. And their beauty and sadness.  It's a bit like trying to argue whether the themes and philosophy of King Lear are worth bothering with or not on the basis of their historical accuracy (dubious indeed!). There was no King of France, no Duke of Burgundy or Duke of Albany when Lear was a king in these islands - if he ever was a king. Does that make a nonsense of the play?

I like your chess set.

I enjoyed Sean the Sheep: my favourite character was Slip, the feral dog. At first I thought he was an urban fox, but no. I'm glad he found a home. Did Trumper, the warden from the Animal Containment Unit, really have a poster of President Putin in his office, or did I imagine that?

Temp, Holloway quite often presents Sunday Morning on Radio Scotland, I've just listened to today's edition. Usually it's one of the (admittedly few) interesting programmes there and today's with his discussion with Mona Siddiqui touched on much that you have raised.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007wbls

A word of warning - he sounds exactly like Richard Wilson which is intially disconcerting!

Thank you for the link, ferval, but I can't find Holloway talking to Mona Sidiquoi. On this morning's programme he is interviewing the writer, John Banville. Does Siddiqui come later?


I should like, if I may, to return to stuff for our loos/lavatories/toy-litts. The Sunday Times today mentions a company called Joseph's Toiletries. This firm apparently sells the "world's most expensive bog paper". Gwyneth Paltrow has been raving about their product on Goop, her dedicated website for suicidal housewives. She suggests, apparently without a trace of irony, that Joseph's toilet paper would make "a viable Christmas present". I checked out the Joseph site and I offer the following from it, having clicked on the rather grand-sounding link: "The Tissue".


https://www.josephs-toiletries.com/



The Tissue

A Great Invention Deserves Reinvention

The next generation of toilet paper which can be used dry and moist, yet remains fully flushable. Why is toilet paper always on a roll? Why can’t it be thick and solid enough for one sheet to suffice?

JOSEPH’S Toiletries is the most soothing and absorbent toilet paper in the world. Each individual sheet is a multi-layered microcosm of form and function constructed with comfort and cleanliness in mind. Tender virgin new-growth fibres are refined with a provitamin B5 and essential mineral coating to provide maximum skin protection even in dry use.


The dendritic structure of the inner core provides optimal absorption while the outer layers act as moisture barrier for wet use. The ultra-gentle quilted surface provides profound softness.

All raw materials are FSC and PEFC certified to ensure the product is sustainable as it is desirable. JOSEPH’S Toiletries toilet paper is accompanied with two treatments in order to introduce the most skin friendly concept of pure cleansing and exceptional skin care to toilet hygiene.


I was intrigued by the mention of the "two treatments" which come with your order for the posh bog rolls. Apparently it is stuff for washing your bottom. The Sunday Times describes it as "executive bum cleanser".

A pack of rolls, plus "the treaments", cost $630: is that about £400 in our money?

Whatever happened to Izal?





PS What is "provitamin B5"? Is it safe to put this up your bottom?

Sorry Temp, I should have said, that bit's about 1h 30 minutes into the programme.

Thank you so much for the Joseph info, I'm sure the spluttered tea will dry off the screen eventually. I particularly appreciated the helpful diagram showing where to find one's bum.





And the advertising video - Coming Home for Business!


Oh, and Molton Brown can now only ever be deeply naff since it's sold on QVC.

It's got to be a joke, hasn't it - except it isn't...

This is from the website under "Concept". How can you have a "concept" for loo paper?

Feeling. Pure. Clean. Cared for. With toilet paper.
An act of necessity can be elevated to a ritual of personal refinement;
A daily routine to a sublime expression of style.

Crikey. A ritual of personal refinement...

Gosh, our grannies, with squares of News of the World on bits of string hanging on the door (or wall in the picture) of the outside privy, would never believe this. (Squares of News of the World? Luxury!)





 Now that's what you call a sublime expression of style!

My posh bath and shower gel pressie isn't Tobacco Road: it's Tobacco Absolute. Sorry, Molton Brown.

It's actually quite a nice smell, not like an old ashtray at all: I suppose they've used extract of Nicotiana Tabacum in it.

This really should go on the Rant thread as a sad and despairing condemnation of the English education system, but I must admit that, in the gloom of a deep and dark December, I was cheered by the utter absurdity of the conversation I had with a young Post Office employee (it was earlier today).

I had one rogue Christmas card left to send - to South Africa - so I joined the cards and parcels queue and hopefully handed it over. The young official consulted her little leaflet to ascertain the correct airmail postage, and then asked, "Where is the Republic of South Africa? Is it in Europe?"

Somewhat startled, I replied, "I rather think South Africa is in Africa. Shall I google it just to make sure? It's definitely not in Asia or Australia."

I nearly made a joke about continental crustiness, but decided it was probably wiser not to.

On whatever land mass South Africa finds itself these days, my card won't get there in time. The last posting date was December 4th. Oh well.

"Every Christmas I'd come running downstairs to the big pile of presents and start unwrapping them as fast as I could. Sometimes there would be fights over who had the best toys but we would all make up later and sit down to have a three hour lunch before watching TV for the rest of the day.

I really miss working at the Royal Mail sorting office."

Temperance wrote:

I had one rogue Christmas card left to send - to South Africa - so I joined the cards and parcels queue and hopefully handed it over. The young official consulted her little leaflet to ascertain the correct airmail postage, and then asked, "Where is the Republic of South Africa? Is it in Europe?"

Oh the benefits of Empire, or ex-Empire ... most French overseas territories are still classed as Departments of France, and so as well as voting in French elections, using the Euro, and effectively being part of the EU, they also come under the same postal regime as France itself.

So to send a 20g Christmas card from here to Martinique (in the Caribbean), Reunion (in the Indian Ocean), or to French Polynesia (in the Pacific), costs exactly the same as to it send to Paris (0,68€). To send the same Christmas card to Britain, Belgium, Luxembourg or indeed any other country in Europe (at 0,95€) ... or to the USA (at 1,20€) ... costs more than to send it half way round the world to an isolated French island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Last posting dates are however a bit different.

And a 'heads-up' to everyone ..... it's the peak of the Geminid meteor shower tonight (14th December) ... there's no moon and Gemini (a bit above and to the left of Orion) will be up and over the eastern UK horizon by about 9pm UK time. Here its already cold and clear so the viewing should be good tonight ... it's been quite good in fact for the past two nights, though rather chilly ... so wrap up warm.

BBC Sky at Night - Geminids 2015

I very much like these chocolate sprouts from M&S. Ideal gift for rich friends who seem to have everything (and much cheaper than posh loo paper).

I like to think it is good news, anyway. There have been press reports of a closed cotton factory planning to start up again. About here, there used to be many small factories but they could never reopen likewise. There are des res in the wood yard, money lenders and gym in the old ironworks and  computer companies in the machine shops...... but others have disappeared if their shell was not worth preserving. In the county town of Chelmsford, I attended a function at the Marconi Club...... I had no idea that the Marconi  company no longer exists - or not here, anyway....... babies and bath water come to mind. I hope Res Hist is not going the same route. 

Anyone feel like opening a thread about the rise and fall of the UK industrial base? Can it be revived - indeed do we want it to?

Doubtful that it can be revived P, not unless British workers would be prepared to accept low wages in order to be competitive with the products manufactured in the new western industrial base that is Asia. It is a problem many countries face today, we've come to expect a certain standard of living (and also expect that standard to improve apace) that is incompatible with industry. On the other hand we also demand cheap prices on products in our shops, we've rather created a rod for our own backs on that one.

I think the UK, almost entirely through its own efforts, has also lost the skills base to revive industries even in sectors where it was once pre-eminent.

For twenty years I worked in industry in companies producing specilaist alloys. The UK employment costs were not a major problem as the materials and production costs were comparatively high as we used sophisticated, very high temperature, powder technology, and the alloys were made from platinum, rhodium, gold, cobalt, beryllium, rare-earths etc. Both companies had been in existence since long before WW1 and had good international reputations. They were recognised worldwide as leaders in their, albeit rather limited, fields. But in both we always had trouble keeping at the cutting edge. We had increasing trouble recruiting good science graduates: physicists, chemists, metallurgists, engineers. We needed graduates that actually knew their subject rather than had just paid their fees and so reckoned they were owed a 1st class honours degree, and ones that could do basic maths or who could be trusted to write a coherent technical report, in sentences, correctly spelled.

At the same time I also taught evening classes at the local technical college. This was the materials module for HND engineering diplomas, so the students were mostly apprentice welders, mechanics, laboratory technicians etc from local firms (including my own). But as many of these local firms closed, the numbers of students dropped and eventually the college stopped the engineering courses. In place of courses in fabrication technology, automotive engineering, welding, construction, etc. it now just does courses in floristry, recreation, leisure, beauty, hairdressing, etc. I later also lectured/tutored materials science undergrads at Open University summer schools. But again a lack of students meant the OU eventually dropped that as well as a load of other science/engineering degree subjects.

Both companies that I used to work for have now shut down all UK operations: one was bought by a large multi-national which immediately closed all British sites (2 factories, a research base, a precious metals refinery and 3 sales offices throughout England and Wales). The other was bought by a fairly small German company which was then little bigger than ourselves and which made the same products. The multi-national has now had to close a lot more operations, in the USA, France and Italy ... but the German firm is still going strong, having merged with a similar modestly-sized US firm. They, of course, bought all the intellectual rights as well as the UK factory site and plant, so maybe some of my original research work, including two patents and numerous confidential reports, is of use to someone even if that someone isn't in Britain. 

A lot of the problem I have always felt is the attitude in the UK (and it does seem to be more a UK thing) that science is for nerds and that an engineer is someone who tries to mend your washing machine. In France, even though I am no longer working in the field, the fact that I have recognised "letters after my name", means I am viewed with a certain, probably undeserved, respect, should it ever come up. I know that French (and German, Dutch, Italian etc.) scientists and engineers are all on salaries comparable to accountants, lawyers and GPs, while in Britain I was paid only a fraction more than my own secretary, and all the production managers, laboratory managers, engineering managers in the company were also paid considerably less than the human resouces managers, logistics managers, and accountants.

And yet British politicians (almost none of which have any scientific qualifications or experience themselves) still wring their hands and say they want more STEM graduates. But why should any prospective graduate even consider the idea ... the subjects are hard, your chances of getting a UK job even vaguely related to your subject are now slim, and you'll be paid an absolute pittance. That is unless you do the degree and then promptly go abroad to work ... perhaps to Asia where they are investing in their population and industry.

Do I sound a little bitter? .... you betcha!

Rant over.

A number of former factories in my hometown have gone the way of housing estates - and another one is due to do so.  We do need lasting jobs for people rather than passing ones (I'm bitter because the HS2 is due to pass through my county a few miles down the road from where I live and I am fed up of building on greenfield sites - people say the HS2 will bring jobs but they will not be lasting jobs). You paint a depressing picture, Meles Meles.  I remember once hearing something on the radio about degrees not being necessary.  I texted the programme and said I was pleased that the doctors at my local surgery had degrees!  Not saying there aren't some "Mickey Mouse" degrees - a friend's daughter's boyfriend had one in Golf Management or something similar.  Though that friend can tell a fine Irish tale and may have exaggerated a little.

Aye, MM, you are right about engineers being undervalued in the UK. My mother could never understand why my husband couldn't/wouldn't attempt to fix the sewing machine or grass cutter. Being a Fellow of his Engineering Institute he would murmur that he might design a better one for her but he was not a repair mechanic. Being neither but more 'Everywoman' in that respect, I am the one who fixes things here.

I hope the new cotton factory works out - cotton is trendy and expensive again.......pure, cotton, pure wool appear to be scoring points over man made fibres. Any one remember crimplene?

On a more positive note, and this is supposed to be the rave thread after all ...  there's quite a lot of old British industry that is probably best left to the history books ... or the Chinese. People lament the loss of long-term jobs and the close communities that grew up around certain industries, but do the same people really want to work down coal mines, in lead works, or steel-mills, and have huge ship yards, car factories, a couple of blast furnaces or a chemical works at the bottom of their gardens? The scarred, ugly, polluted landscapes of many of these old industrial sites are now landscaped parks and restored woodlands,  or re-developed with much needed housing. And not all industry and manufacturing has gone from the UK. In sophisticated high-tech areas like aerospace, robotics, satellites, bio-engineering, phamaceuticals, nano-technology etc ... British companies are still at the forefront. 

If I'm honest, even if I could, I'm not sure I would actually want to go back to working regular hours in a factory or even a research centre, in an industrial "park", in the suburbs of some sprawling UK city, or indeed any city. Life for me is quieter now, no less busy but less stressful ... it's poorer financially (even though I did moan about my poor pay), but richer in the quality of life, or at least in the things that now seem to matter to me. I feel my life now is quite precarious, but any stability that I used to feel when working in a "good solid British company" I now see was a complete illusion ... being made redundant three times in five years rather made me realise that.

Meles meles wrote:

On a more positive note, and this is supposed to be the rave thread after all ...  there's quite a lot of old British industry that is probably best left to the history books ... or the Chinese. People lament the loss of long-term jobs and the close communities that grew up around certain industries, but do the same people really want to work down coal mines, in lead works, or steel-mills, and have huge ship yards, car factories, a couple of blast furnaces or a chemical works at the bottom of their gardens? The scarred, ugly, polluted landscapes of many of these old industrial sites are now landscaped parks and restored woodlands,  or re-developed with much needed housing. And not all industry and manufacturing has gone from the UK. In sophisticated high-tech areas like aerospace, robotics, satellites, bio-engineering, phamaceuticals, nano-technology etc ... British companies are still at the forefront. 

If I'm honest, even if I could, I'm not sure I would actually want to go back to working regular hours in a factory or even a research centre, in an industrial "park", in the suburbs of some sprawling UK city, or indeed any city. Life for me is quieter now, no less busy but less stressful ... it's poorer financially (even though I did moan about my poor pay), but richer in the quality of life, or at least in the things that now seem to matter to me. I feel my life now is quite precarious, but any stability that I used to feel when working in a "good solid British company" I now see was a complete illusion ... being made redundant three times in five years rather made me realise that.

Thank you very much for your thoughts in your message of 5 January 1h11 and also for your more positive notes from here above...this evening I haven't the time anymore to start an elaborated reply, which will be also a replique to Priscilla, Lady in retirement and Islanddawn...but tomorrow...

Kind regards to all of you, Paul.

Still struggling with my review of the postindustrial era, I will have to postpone my take on the promised survey of the nowadays European society...
Some entries I am reading:

http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2008/04/08/the-post-industrial-economy/
http://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Matters-Myth-Post-Industrial-Economy/dp/0465043852
http://www.britannica.com/topic/postindustrial-society
https://goo.gl/T25H2u
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/social-foundations-of-postindustrial-economies-9780198742005?cc=be&lang=en&#

Kind regards, Paul.

And still struggling for a coherent reply...
Some further entries:
https://www.quora.com/Which-country-is-the-most-economically-self-sufficient
http://www.chaipat.or.th/chaipat_english/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4103&Itemid=293
https://sapiens.revues.org/227
Source of the above link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veolia
https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2012/09/pdf/dervis.pdf


Kind regards, Paul.

Soon we will be able to speak to our car - and, with any luck this ought in time to allow us to speak to others as well. Road chat should take the drudge out of long journeys no end. Verbal abuse from trucks might be a hazard. On reflection perhaps this should be a rant and not a rave.

Paul, careful with those links. If they're too big use the method I showed you before to give them their own display title. Otherwise they destroy the page formatting and everyone has to scroll to the right to read the contents of every post afterwards.

Ah - I wondered what had happened when posts became verbal cliff hangers. I blamed my computer and BT. Paul please take note before the master gets all cross. (Keeping him sweet is suuuch a trial.....) (Don't take offence. This is called crude humour.)

I wasn't at all cross with Paul.

No, but with you it is so difficult to tell when an irk is coming on. And I bring out the worst in you without even trying. May a good lord be with you if ever I try!! Choose an emotive to your liking here. Do we have one for pussy-footing?

Now go wash your feet..... sir.

I used to teach twin brothers called Wayne and Shane. They were very naughty Year 7 boys put, for some unknown reason, in the same tutor group. I remember one despairing headteacher at the school where these twins were receiving a liberal English education (this was about 1978) decreeing, in an effort to sort out blocked lavatories, that no more loo paper would be provided in the school facilities. Pupils were now expected to bring adequate daily supplies of tissue for themselves. It was a very foolish decision from the top "management".

Wayne and Shane's parent made certain her boys always had individual toilet rolls in their bags (no pens, pencils or rulers, but always lavish provision should the lads feel the urge for the voiding of their bowels during the school day). Parental responsibility of a sort, I suppose. When nature called, they would simply take a jumbo roll from their bag and wave it enthusiastically in the air. Usually in unison.

Sorry, nothing to do with nordmann's Shane, but a fond memory.

I like "irk", and "an irk coming on".

Up to the 16th century "to be irked" meant to be disgusted. It is thought it might have stemmed from the Norse/Germanic "yrke" (work). In terms of my own attitude to work I am very much a pre-renaissance man.

Meles meles thank you very much for your thoughts in your message of 5 January 1h11 and also for your more positive notes from here above...this evening I haven't the time anymore to start an elaborated reply, which will be also a replique to Priscilla, Lady in retirement and Islanddawn...but tomorrow...
	Subject: Re: The Daily Rave   Sun 10 Jan 2016 - 23:10 Still struggling with my review of the postindustrial era, I will have to postpone my take on the promised survey of the nowadays European society... Some entries I am reading: http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2008/04/08/the-post-industrial-economy/ http://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Matters-Myth-Post-Industrial-Economy/dp/0465043852 http://www.britannica.com/topic/postindustrial-society https://goo.gl/T25H2u https://global.oup.com/academic/product/social-foundations-of-postindustrial-economies-9780198742005?cc=be&lang=en&#
	Subject: Re: The Daily Rave   Tue 12 Jan 2016 - 23:13 And still struggling for a coherent reply... Some further entries: https://www.quora.com/Which-country-is-the-most-economically-self-sufficient http://www.chaipat.or.th/chaipat_english/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4103&Itemid=293 https://sapiens.revues.org/227 Source of the above link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veolia https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2012/09/pdf/dervis.pdf

I know that I am of the group the more serious and perhaps more boring one ...no jokes, at least not intended...finally made a coherent rally of my thoughts...and wanted to make them public...and now it is again nearing midnight on the European peninsula...

Paul, going to sleep...

In answer to Meles meles, negative and positive survey of the British industry and society.

Meles meles,

we and that's then Europe, North America, the Japan and the Australian area are already living in a post-Industrial environment.
One is speaking already about a fifth industrial revolution
http://petermarsh.eu/the-new-industrial-revolution-all-is-explained/
I don't say that there hasn't to be a balance where "manufacturing" is still a base for the local economy, but I think as you said we, the West, have to keep the higher technological industry as we have the educated potential. The level of professional requirements is certainly much higher than some 30 years ago. So many multinationals let now the assembling over to less sofisticated countries, while the "study centers" stay in the former Industrial core countries. That don't mean less work for the population, but those who are needed for the jobs have to have a better training and education...
http://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Matters-Myth-Post-Industrial-Economy/dp/0465043852

As for the world as a whole...
Yes and we have only one earth...
I don't say we must act as this Thai example
http://www.chaipat.or.th/chaipat_english/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4103&Itemid=293
But somewhere we shall have to make a choice in what we desire and in some cases for the unfortunate ones, who were by circumstances not able to fulfill the requirements of the modern society, they will have to be content with some basic income with less opportunities.
I am not a Socialist, but nevertheless as I see that the modern capitalistic system has a tendency to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, while the middle class is relatively shrinking I suppose that in the future there will be more regulating needed from I suppose "internationial" bodies, (or groups of important developed countries?)...
http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2008/04/08/the-post-industrial-economy/

Finished with multinationals, who escape their taxes on the Kaaiman islands, a fair tax collecting and a fair government income distribution...although I agree that there has to be a merit system, where the best have more benefits than the less productive or inventive ones...but the super rich have to pay for the super poor...a redistribution society...

But again about the global world, when you look to for instance all the trouble in nowadays Africa and the recent religious turmoil our model world seems not to be for the first ten years...

Kind regards, Paul.

I'm glad our Mark has won an Oscar. Just hope we don't now lose him to Hollywood.

A possible new species of Octopus, nick-named Casper, after the ghost, has been found by researchers;





Casper Octopus

Morrisons are flogging chocolate dinosaurs for Easter. A great Easter treat for the offspring of any Creationist friends.

Temperance wrote:

Morrisons are flogging chocolate dinosaurs for Easter. A great Easter treat for the offspring of any Creationist friends.

BBE Vernal Solstice 65,214,068 BCE it says on mine

You get chocolate fossils as well with this one!







But I still prefer Roary.

T-20 final today at 1.30 pm. - on Sky. Not quite cricket - it's a sort of cross between that, rounders. baseball and beach cricket with grandad - where the last over is usually a thriller. When the West Indies had to get 3 in 3 balls the Mumbai crowd of 30000 went totally silent. Of course a 6 ended it but no one knew for sure that it would happen. Thrills galore and to be honest a few laughs as it is all rather daft. Still, good luck to Morgan and co today. I have watched about 25 of these games so know that anything could and does happen.

Priscilla wrote:

and to be honest a few laughs as it is all rather daft.

Yes indeed P, and an appropriate response to Temp's last post on another thread as well.

Sport and religion - two topics that I find really interesting but from the perspective of an onlooker rather than a devotee. Please don't stop laughing at either, or anything else that people find to be so very serious that it becomes more important than just getting on with living and being happy, that way lies most of the unhappiness in the world.

Who's playing anyway?

A great match; I don't suppose anyone here bothered to watch and such a cliffhanger, too. The last over was indeed a thriller. Four hours of 'cant leave the room' excitement at least got me cleaning silver without complaint.

can cricket really be that thrilling? i've tried, i really have tried to find something in a game of cricket that can stop me wanting to slash my wrists... and for gods sake why does it have to be british. 

where have all the bunnies gone... the countryside used to be full of em...

and why do people insist on throwing their rubbish out of the car when in a beauty spot.

bye.

normanhurst wrote:

can cricket really be that thrilling? i've tried, i really have tried to find something in a game of cricket that can stop me wanting to slash my wrists... and for gods sake why does it have to be british. 

where have all the bunnies gone... the countryside used to be full of em...

and why do people insist on throwing their rubbish out of the car when in a beauty spot.

bye.

I suppose cricket is a game for long hot summer days when it's just too warm for footie.

Maybe the bunnies have gone to the same place as the red squirrels.  It's a number of years ago but I did see some urban rabbits on a traffic island near the centre of Wolverhampton but don't know if the Council moved 'em on.  There's one thread which mentions rabbits unearthing evidence of human habitation so perhaps they like ancient monuments.

Why do people fling their rubbish out of a car at all?  Or drop it on the floor within walking distance of a public rubbish bin?

normanhurst wrote:

...where have all the bunnies gone...  

Gone to Devon, every one.

Munching away happily all day here, the little blighters. Whenever they see me returning home from Rosemoor with those little brown paper bags full of plants they jump for joy. A RHS bag for them is the same as a Pret-a-Manger bag for us humans.