Oh, I'm not ashamed about expressing my belief, LiR: I am ashamed that a) I have not been courteous (you will have gathered the delicious irony in my choice of name by now) and that b) all this is actually about intellectual pride (using the word intellectual very loosely), not belief.

Moggies and Richard III are probably wiser things to discuss, for me at least. (I'll still make the odd snide comment about PG too, given the opportunity.)

Quote :

 I tend to keep off religion in conversations.

That's what we were all taught, of course. It's hard to discuss history without mentioning it though; religion crops up all the time. The trick is to stay on topic and not become emotional. I'm hopeless at doing either, I'm afraid.

You aren't the only one who allows emotion to creep into posts here Temp, you're just more honest about it than some. What's wrong with that anyway? This is a place for discussion amongst, I hope, friends in a cyber pub and not an academic seminar, even if, when the feedback is delivered, it's sometimes just a wee bit reminiscent of getting an essay returned. You don't get marks pm'd to you, do you?

It's just another aspect of that topic which we have chewed over so often: the impossibility of interpreting the past devoid of any subjectivity and seeing it other than through our own eyes and from our own time and reflecting our own experience.

That's an excellent article on Rev, not just because it expresses my feelings so lucidly.

I trust you have a nice bottle of something for the weekend?

I too hope you continue to post without fear or favour, temperance.  I always look forward to opening your posts, for their intelligence, charm, argumentativeness, thoughtfulness and preparedness to be shot down.  The only thing that bothers me about them is that you often say something has worried you all day and you have been thinking about it constantly.  Just another example of your thoughtfulness and care, I know, but I don't like to think of you stewing over something so you can't enjoy yourself in your leisure time.  (Though obviously you learn lots from these follow-ups.)

No, on second thoughts two things bother me - sometimes you delete what I know will have been posts worth reading.

Caro wrote:

Vizzer's objections to the kids being given tickets to the football seem to be focussed on the motives for it rather than the benefits.

The objection, however, was not an opposition. I said that I wasn’t sold on the cause of that particular charity and so wouldn’t donate towards it. If others wish to do so then, of course, that is their decision. Their motives are their own.

That is the thing about charity - unlike with taxes - one gets to choose directly what one’s labour, time and money goes towards. The distinction between the state's role and groups of individuals acting in charity has been a contentious one for centuries. For example, in England, the Statute of Charitable Uses 1601 passed during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, saw her Lord Chancellor Thomas Egerton and Chancellor of the Exchequer John Fortescue attempt for the first time to list what activities where to be considered charitable. They were:

i) Relief of aged, impotent and poor people
ii) Maintenance of sick and maimed soldiers and mariners
iii) Schools of learning, free schools and scholars in universities
iv) Repair of bridges, ports, havens, causeways, churches, seabanks and highways
v) Education and preferment of orphans
vi) Relief stock or maintenance of houses of correction
vii) Marriages of poor maids
Viii) Support aid and help of young tradesmen, handicraftsmen and persons decayed
ix) Relief or redemption of prisoners or captives
x) Ease of any poor inhabitants concerning payment of fifteens, setting out of soldiers and other taxes

The list is a window onto the concerns, social mores and demographic realities of early 17th century England. Needless to say that many of those functions have since been taken on by the state, while changed demographics and social mores have meant that some concerns such as ‘marriages of poor maids’ are pretty much redundant now. Not having a dowry was a serious handicap to a young woman at that time but is much less of an issue in England today - if an issue at all. Note also how no animal or plant charities are listed. It would be 200 years later in the 1800s that the first animal charity is recorded.  

Quote :

I think that one of the worst aspects of poverty in a first-world country is that people don't get any treats, and if they do treat themselves people object to beneficiaries spending their money on cigarettes or alcohol or sweets, or anything that might make them feel good.  Poor children in Britain are as likely as anyone to be aware of the importance of the Premier League in the nation's life and doubtless want to join in too.  And unlike Nordmann I think it does help kids to be able to join in what the rest of the community enjoys.

It depends on what makes an individual ‘feel good’. In my case I feel good if there is fresh fruit and greens in the kitchen. I also enjoy beer and wine and cakes occasionally. I used to smoke tobacco. I certainly wouldn't begrudge anyone these occasional pleasures. There is, however, nothing charitable about encouraging people to become addicted to nicotine, alcohol and refined sugar. The predatory multinational corporations make a massive killing doing just that. They don’t need my help in it. In fact so skilled are they at what they do that they even get me as a taxpayer to fork out to pay in the form of the UK’s huge health service budget for the mess which they create.

This business of feeding cheap jam and gin to the masses has been going on for more centuries that one might care to imagine. I certainly won’t be contributing my spare cash to that great project.

If life in the UK’s inner cities is so hellish that it needs to be blotted out in this way then that is indeed an indictment of the UK itself. And it’s all the more reason to ensure that the green spaces of England, its beaches, its woodland and its public parks etc are healthy, litter-free and safe for flora, fauna and humans alike. And if the recreational grounds are cleared of broken glass, plastic bottles, crisp packets, hypodermic syringes and shopping bags full of dog crap etc, then, instead of wanting to watch over-paid professionals perform in the Premiership, maybe the UK’s inner-city kids might be inclined to actually play a game of football for themselves.

That's a really interesting list, Vizzer.  Our government recently put through a new act changing what was considered 'charitable' and putting in lots of rules round charitable status, which is more an irritant needing lots of paper work than anything useful.   Repair of churches is still considered either charitable or the duty of church members themselves, but we expect our government to repair bridges and highways etc. and there is much complaining when they don't.  

Our rules say:
A charitable purpose can include:

• the relief of poverty
  
• the advancement of education
  
• the advancement of religion, or
  
• anything else that benefits the community.
  

A charitable purpose must also provide a public benefit, which means a benefit that is:

• recognised by law as beneficial, and
  
• available to the public or a sufficient section of the public – for example, people living in a particular geographical area, or with particular charitable needs.
  

A purpose can't be charitable if it's aimed at creating private financial profit.
A marae [Maori meeting house area] has a charitable purpose if the physical structure of the marae is on Māori reservation land, and the marae's funds are used only for administering the land and physical structure and/or for a “charitable purpose” according to the general definition above.
Sport and recreation organisations can qualify for registration as charities if promoting sport is the means by which the organisation pursues a charitable purpose. For example, a sports organisation providing training or skills-development for the public may qualify as a charity under the “advancement of education” purpose, or an organisation providing public sport or recreation facilities may be considered to be benefitting the community.

Having a drink or going to sports isn't necessarily 'blotting out' life - I do both regularly and never feel the need to blot out anything (possibly because I don't have much need to blot things out). I think I would have a treat every day of my life that some people just can't afford even in a country like New Zealand - fruit, wine, flowers on the table, time to read, outings to events or for dinner or the movies or a show, etc.  There was a little outcry here recently because  beneficiaries were spending money on trips overseas - there wasn't any analysis of why in the reports.  Or who - did this include superannuitants in a country which has universal superannuation when you reach 65? (In 6 months time for us - yay!)  People might have been going overseas to visit dying relatives, and Pacific Island people have duties to their family back in the Islands, or going to access cheaper operations etc.  But it was strongly disapproved of that people should have the gall to travel across the water when they were receiving money from the state. 

At any rate begrudging individual people a holiday or whatever small treats they fancy and can manage is not the same as denouncing the multinational corporations making excessive profits. 

There's room in most people's lives for both playing sport and watching it.  One doesn't preclude the other.  And I'm not even sure that just clearing up grounds would make a difference here - I suspect they would just get covered quickly again.  But perhaps a more concentrated effort on this by officials might help.

Thank you for your friendly posts above, ferval and Caro - you too, LiR. Much appreciated. I should like to add another post here, but I really will try - as courtesy demands (not being sarcastic) - to stay on topic.
 

Vizzer wrote:

For example, in England, the Statute of Charitable Uses 1601 passed during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, saw her Lord Chancellor Thomas Egerton and Chancellor of the Exchequer John Fortescue attempt for the first time to list what activities where to be considered charitable.

Is there any evidence of how ordinary people reacted to this new statute? I wonder whether its provisions were discussed - fiercely argued over and moaned about -  in the parishes (and taverns) all over England? How did Elizabethans react to the various Poor Laws that had become so necessary following the closure of the monasteries? Were the new legal requirements - desperately introduced in order to provide adequate "parish relief" - generally accepted without demur? Until 1563 funds for general parish relief had after all been raised through "gentle asking": after that date the "gentle asking" became a sterner demand - a statutory obligation backed by imprisonment if a proper payment was refused. Were these various laws - of 1563, 1572 and 1601 - actually bitterly resented by the property owners who were now legally, rather than morally, obliged to cough up?

Shakespeare wrote his King Lear a couple of years after the 1601 statute - sometime between 1603 and 1606. Many of the things we have been discussing on this thread were clearly on his mind. I saw Lear last week, beamed up live from the National (it was shown in cinemas/theatres across the UK and, amazingly, in 35 other countries). At one point in Act III, Sam Mendes, the director, had a line of down-and-outs, the sort you see all over London, troop across the stage staring at the audience - and the camera - like accusing ghosts. The play was in modern costume and there they all were -  complete with greasy beanies and filthy sleeping bags. I think there was even a mangy dog amongst the throng. These "ghosts" of human beings appeared just as Lear ("before the hovel") delivered these famous lines:

Poor naked wretches, whereso'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O, I have ta'en
Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,
And show the heavens more just.

And then Edgar (played by Tom Brooke) - Gloucester's son who is pretending to be a mad Tom o' Bedlam - suddenly appeared like some wild-eyed kid high on crystal meth, naked, gesticulating and shouting what appeared to be incoherent nonsense (it's not):

Who gives any thing to poor Tom? whom the foul
fiend hath led through fire and through flame, and
through ford and whirlipool e'er bog and quagmire;
that hath laid knives under his pillow, and halters
in his pew; set ratsbane by his porridge; made him
proud of heart, to ride on a bay trotting-horse over
four-inched bridges, to course his own shadow for a
traitor. Bless thy five wits! Poor Tom's a-cold...

Who gives anything to poor Tom indeed? Shakespeare must have seen many such Toms o' Bedlam - genuine and fake - wandering, begging, sleeping rough on the South Bank.

And here we are, 400 years on, and nothing's changed.

It was a powerful production. Simon Russell Beale was superb.

I'm also trying to find out more about corruption in the administration of the Parish Relief funds - something that is mentioned on this very interesting site:

http://www.londonlives.org/static/PoorLawOverview.jsp

Seems the whole system was absolutely chaotic - the equivalent of a "postcode lottery" today - then it was a parish lottery: some parishes were generous and had a system that seemed to work pretty fairly; others were dreadful.

And Shakespeare of course has Lear rail against the injustice and corruption of it all. Apologies for the great long quotation, but these words from Act IV - where Lear and Gloucester, the one mad, the other blind - are, I think, relevant to the thread:
 
 Lear.  O, ho! are you there with me? No eyes in your head, nor no money in your purse? Your eyes are in a heavy case, your purse in a light: yet you see how this world goes.
 
 Glo.  I see it feelingly.
 
 Lear.  What! art mad? A man may see how this world goes with no eyes. Look with thine ears: see how yond justice rails upon yon simple thief. Hark, in thine ear: change places; and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief? Thou hast seen a farmer’s dog bark at a beggar?
         
 Glo.  Ay, sir.
 
 Lear.  And the creature run from the cur? There thou mightst behold the great image of authority; a dog’s obey’d in office.  
Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand!  
Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back;  
Thou hotly lust’st to use her in that kind        
For which thou whipp’st her. The usurer hangs the cozener.  
Through tatter’d clothes small vices do appear;  
Robes and furr’d gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,  
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;  
Arm it in rags, a pigmy’s straw doth pierce it.          
None does offend, none, I say none; I’ll able ’em:  
Take that of me, my friend, who have the power  
To seal the accuser’s lips. Get thee glass eyes;  
And, like a scurvy politician, seem  
To see the things thou dost not. Now, now, now, now;        
Pull off my boots; harder, harder; so.
 
 Edg.  [Aside.]  O! matter and impertinency mix’d;  
Reason in madness!  

 Lear.  If thou wilt weep my fortunes, take my eyes;  
I know thee well enough; thy name is Gloucester:        
Thou must be patient; we came crying hither:  
Thou know’st the first time that we smell the air  
We waul and cry. I will preach to thee: mark.
 
 Glo.  Alack! alack the day!
 
 Lear.  When we are born, we cry that we are come        
To this great stage of fools.

The words "scurvy politician" caused a ripple of laughter in the theatre last Thursday night, but "politician" as used by Shakespeare actually means "a trickster", one who uses Machiavelli's "policy", not a politician in the modern sense of the word. However, that said...

Now this quote may not be 100% because it is many years since I came across it studying for "A" level History, but somebody obviously thought that any of the beneficiaries of the Spleenhamland System (which was worked out at The Pelican Inn in Spleenhamland) method of poor relief from the early nineteenth century was aimed at the "undeserving" rather than "deserving" poor:-

"The little inn at Spleenhamland that lies beneath the hill
Is rightly called the Pelican from its enormous bill".


And then some singers belt out "Johnny I hardly knew you" about somebody coming home maimed from the wars, as if it were a jolly, little ditty.  I thought it was a "folk-song" but it was in fact written by a popular song-writer in 1867 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_I_Hardly_Knew_Ye

Here is a short extract from the song on the Wikipedia site  

Joseph B Geoghegan (song writer) wrote:

Ye haven't an arm, ye haven't a leg, hurroo, hurroo
Ye haven't an arm, ye haven't a leg, hurroo, hurroo
Ye haven't an arm, ye haven't a leg
Ye're an armless, boneless, chickenless egg
Ye'll have to be put with a bowl out to beg
Oh Johnny I hardly knew ye.

Hardly jolly, in my opinion.

Temperance wrote:

Is there any evidence of how ordinary people reacted to this new statute? I wonder whether its provisions were discussed - fiercely argued over and moaned about -  in the parishes (and taverns) all over England? How did Elizabethans react to the various Poor Laws that had become so necessary following the closure of the monasteries? Were the new legal requirements - desperately introduced in order to provide adequate "parish relief" - generally accepted without demur? Until 1563 funds for general parish relief had after all been raised through "gentle asking": after that date the "gentle asking" became a sterner demand - a statutory obligation backed by imprisonment if a proper payment was refused. Were these various laws - of 1563, 1572 and 1601 - actually bitterly resented by the property owners who were now legally, rather than morally, obliged to cough up?

That’s a recurring issue with the study of the past Temp. Very few people could write. And of those that could even fewer could afford stationery. And of those that could afford stationery even fewer again could afford proper storage for their writings to preserve them for posterity. Consequently almost all written records available today tend to be those of and relating to the social and political elite.

That said – it’s worth persevering as quite often one can indeed get a glimpse of the wider discourse echoed in such writings. For example in 1587 William Cecil, the Lord High Treasurer received a letter from one Miles Fry claiming to be ‘Emmanuel Plantagenet, Ambassador of God the Father to the Queen’s Highness’. He also claimed to be the Queen’s own son who was taken from her at birth by the 'Angel Gabriel' and that now he needed to 'declare his embassy to the Queen'. Needless to say that Fry today might be deemed a psychiatric case and would also have been perceived as such in the 16th century. In his letter, however, Fry also claims to be ‘in great extremity and ready to perish for lack of help’. He addresses his letter ‘at the sign of the Rose & Crown, Saint John Street, beyond Smithfield in London’ but also says that his family home is 'in the parish of Kilmington in Devonshire'. He goes on to say ‘at this inn it is not convenient for me to stay any time, and if I would I have not where with all: and in this city I shall not get any help: so that if you do not presently help me upon the sight hereof I shall then presently depart unto Devonshire again’.

From this we glimpse that Fry was aware that in 1587 he was more likely to be in receipt of care (whether public relief or private charity) from his home parish rather than from the Corporation of London. It were the twin instruments of the Poor Law 1601 and the Statute of Charitable Uses 1601 which began to attempt to delineate the lines between public relief and private charity. There were, of course, huge overlaps between the 2 and this delineation has continued to evolve ever since.

P.S. I do hope that the dog in the play was not really suffering from the red mange or canine scabies as that would put the director in breach, if not of the Performing Animals Act (1925), then certainly of the Animal Welfare Act (2006). Let's hope it was a case of good (animal-friendly) theatrical make-up and a convincing interpretation of the Bard by a hound thespian.

Vizzer wrote:

P.S. I do hope that the dog in the play was not really suffering from the red mange or canine scabies as that would put the director in breach, if not of the Performing Animals Act (1925), then certainly of the Animal Welfare Act (2006). Let's hope it was a case of good (animal-friendly) theatrical make-up and a convincing interpretation of the Bard by a hound thespian.

He wasn't as convincing as Bongo (Colin's mangy dog) in Rev.

I still haven't got over Bongo's death and funeral - and my shame at laughing when Colin said: " I gave her a kebab and it killed her."

It seems that you A level students got an extra that we O level plebs never had - "Speenhamland" rather than "Spleenhamland" was the version we got!
I recall the day that the Chancellor announced that the Government would make up the wages of workers whose pay fell below an acceptable level - was it called "FIS" at the time? I felt a sense of shock that they didn't see that thus recreating the Speenhamland system would allow *unscrupulous employers* to lower wages. I still wonder if the "National Minimum Wage" and agitation for the introduction of a "Living Wage" aren't the wholly predictable consequences of such subsidies.

*Probable tautology alert*

My mistake Gilgamesh - it is indeed Speenhamland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speenhamland_system
I've thought it was Speenhamland all these years.

Temperance wrote:

I'm also trying to find out more about corruption in the administration of the Parish Relief funds

While not relating to the administration of the Poor Law as such, a prime motivation of the Statute of Charitable Uses was indeed to address the issue of  'frauds', 'breaches of trust', 'abuses', 'negligences', 'misemployments', 'not employing', 'concealing', 'defraudinge', 'misconverting' and 'misgovernment' with regard to those entrusted with 'charitable and godly uses'. The Statute specifically excluded from its terms Oxford and Cambridge universities, Westminster, Eton and Winchester colleges, all cathedral and collegiate churches and also all incorporated cities and towns. In short the Statute only really applied to the shire parishes.

P.S. There's no shame in appreciating a good joke Temp. The one about the dog was topical as it referenced the highly trustworthy UK meat retail sector. Considering that dogs are generally immune to most of the strains of bacteria which would fell a human then one can only deduce that Bongo must have died from shock and grief after realising that, having eaten the kebab, she had just engaged in cannibalism.

P.P.S. LiR and Gil - talking about dodgy pieces of meat, offal and cannibalism - it seems that 'Spleenhamland' can join Fulham, West Ham, Manchester, Liverpool, Hartlepool and Arsenal etc in the old joke about English football supporters marooned on a desert island.

Thanks for the info, Viz.

Poor Bongo.

I haven't eaten a kebab since 1978. I had an eccentric friend who used to refer to the big chunk of meat in kebab outlets as "Billy Hayes's leg".

I don't blame the kebab, it was the Easter egg what done it. A perfect example of the dangers of a misplaced charitable gesture?

When I had my proofreading hat on last night I didn't do very well by putting the correct "Speenhamland" where I should have said that "Spleenhamland" was the wrong name (though "Spleenhamland" with thoughts of one venting one's spleen, does have a ring to it).  If the kebab was made of offal perhaps there was some spleen therein.

If it's confession time, with regard to the allusions to cannibalism - such a grizzly thought but I suppose it depends on the circumstances.  If the matter concerned survivors of an air crash doing so (as I understand has happened in the past) perhaps one could make an argument for excusing it.  For a long time I thought Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street was a real person but apparently he was fictional.

While I'm editing thanks to Gilgamesh for the URL for the sea-shanty.

2nd edit: Did I use "grizzly where I should have used "grisly"?  Too much Yogi Bear when I was a young'un??  I'm seriously considering creating any further posts in something like "Word" which has a spell-checker and then cutting and pasting!!!

This also seems to be fictional - though actual cases are recorded.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ3eORVRIUY

...Beware
Of good Samaritans - walk to the right
Or hide thee by the roadside out of sight
Or greet them with the smile that villains wear.


R.C. Dunning, quoted at the beginning of Jean Rhys's first novel, Quartet, first published 1928.

Vizzer wrote:

P.S. I do hope that the dog in the play was not really suffering from the red mange or canine scabies as that would put the director in breach, if not of the Performing Animals Act (1925), then certainly of the Animal Welfare Act (2006). Let's hope it was a case of good (animal-friendly) theatrical make-up and a convincing interpretation of the Bard by a hound thespian.

He's in the Daily Mail and he has just been featured on BBC Breakfast! It's Baxter - a real old Michael Jambon!


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3231560/Sold-pup-TV-ad-rescue-dog-s-star-not-stray-Five-year-old-Mossup-canine-actor-loving-owners.html


Baxter moved scores of viewers to tears as the star of an animal charity ad.
So moved have some been by the lurcher's performance that they have even offered to take him in themselves.
But 'Baxter' doesn't actually need a new home and is not a real rescue dog.
Five-year-old actually has an impressive acting CV including roles on stage with the Royal Shakespeare Company.


Just another an old luvvie!

Caro wrote:

I'm not even sure that just clearing up grounds would make a difference here - I suspect they would just get covered quickly again.  But perhaps a more concentrated effort on this by officials might help.

That's quite possibly true Caro - on both counts. It's about how a society values and manages its public spaces. For example the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has announced the extinction of the golden eagle in England:

http://www.rspb.org.uk/news/417562-rspb-fears-the-worst-for-englands-last-golden-eagle-

It's somewhat perplexing that the UK, whose media and intelligentsia are very active regarding the plight of tigers, leopards, elephants and rhinoceri etc in Asia and Africa etc and are quite vociferous regarding the need for local communities there to provide and protect sufficient habitat for those creatures, is itself singularly unable to do the same with regard to England's own wildlife. In short it's embarrassing.

The RSPB was founded (originally as the Plumage League in the 1880s) by 2 progressive Victorian women Emily Williamson and Eliza Phillips. Williamson was herself from Lancaster which is coincidently barely 20 miles from where the last eagles' eyrie was at Haweswater.