Lighthouse

This kind of thing has it's moment but I believe that moment has now passed, in the UK at least. Take being gay as an example, it was only 50ish years ago it was a criminal offence. It was a generally accepted norm in society that homosexuality was a sin, as decreed by the church. That kind of backwards thinking was considered mainstream and needed to be challenged. The reason people like Rosa Parks and MLK will be remembered for centuries is because they marched down streets chanting 'black lives matter' in a time and a place where they didn't. Black people were segregated by law and it was considered acceptable in society. The crux of the matter is that in those cases, good people didn't know what they were saying was unacceptable - All they needed was to be told. Today everyone does know but not everyone chooses to accept that.

Are you suggesting that the UK is racist or that racism exists within the UK, because those are two massively different propositions? I can think of very few cities in the world where so many people from different races, religions and nationalities live together in such relative harmony. Gang violence is a bit of an odd one when it comes to racism. I believe in many ways racism is just an excuse that members actively choose as a reason to hate each other. Most of it comes from young men with self esteem issues, low education, low prospects of employment, a lack of role models and generally a lack of purpose in life. As such, they just resort to default instincts - shagging and fighting - and a group of people being a different colour is just a convenience. If you don't believe me, look at the troubles in Northern Ireland. I doubt the vast majority of those involved actually cared about the 16th century reforms of Thomas Cromwell, it's just an excuse for a fight.

Mental gymnastics. The further you become detached from reality, the easier it gets to form your own social construct. Just look at the anti-Vaxers; you’d think a global pandemic on the scale of Covid would have eradicated their conspiracy once and for all, I mean how much more blatant proof do you need of what a world without one vaccine is like, let alone several dozen. However, they don’t see it like that. Somehow this is the concrete evidence they need that vaccines are being used to control the population and that appart from a few geriatrics already on deaths door, nobody really suffers from it. It’ll be the same with Trump supporters, no matter what reality entails.

It won’t, that’s the issue. There are two fantasies in play here from people who purport to be liberal: The idea of racists being wound up, which I find as puerile as kicking the kid in front’s chair in primary school. Deriving satisfaction from seeing ‘the other side’ becoming annoyed and triggered is a selfish form of self satisfaction, which is only making the situation worse. The idea that anyone harbouring and exhibiting racist views is simply uninformed and that you are able to change their minds using nothing but your superior intellect and a repertoire of well drilled slogans and gestures. The false belief that some people simply haven’t been told that their views are unpleasant and that with endless repetition we are, "getting the message across." Nothing I’ve seen from any of these protests has done anything to address the main root causes of these issues, which I regard as mainly class based and not race based, in this country at least. All they’ve achieved is a large increase in tribalism amongst society, which in some people then manifests are racism.

We won’t be locked down come the end of March. As infections ease off and hospital admission falls, there will be a gradual easing, as there was last spring.

It wouldn’t annoy me, although I’d find it a bit bizarre as a concept. Imagine you went to a pub every Friday with your mates and one of them, every week when he walked in, would say "hey, did I tell you guys about the time I met Todd Carty in Morrison’s?" That’s basically how I react to the kneeling.

If it does indeed take about three weeks to offer protection then hopefully by mid February we might be starting to see some real benefit.

China is a country not a race. If you're going to debate this, at least call it xenophobia instead of racism.

I wrote a musical about erectile dysfunction once but none of the major studios went for it.

A mile in 50 minutes is a pretty tough challenge for most Americans.

It does but then we must have been fairly confident of something to offer it in the first case. Especially when you consider that at the end of the window we decided to fork out for Walcott's wage too. Salisu, KWP and Diallo all cost money too, if we were really desperate we'd be scraping around for another Danso or two. Someone, somewhere at the club is/was clearly a lot more comfortable with this than we are.

So basically even after all the precautions we’ve put in place to limit the spread, excess deaths have equated to basically the whole population of Bath. Yet some people still think it’s just a bad flu.

Well it’s a sh*t hole seaside town, which I assume is the angle you were going for with Blackpool.

Sure you’re not thinking of Margate?

I don’t subscribe to any kind of religion but even I know that sticking woke puns and casual blasphemy into prayers to congress isn’t going to do you any favours with the republican God Squad. You’re right, the snowflakes are getting upset, that’s exactly my point. Moderate conservatives will be upset by this kind of thing and it won’t be long before another Trump comes along with a bunch of easy answers and a shoulder to cry on.

Can’t be bothered trawling the thread so sorry if this has been posted already but this is exactly the kind of absurdity that pushes sane people towards the likes of Trump.

I once went past it on the Eurostar and the driver said, "we will shortly be stopping at Ashford International." I didn’t really look up as I was reading my book.

Maybe it wasn’t. Perhaps he was just testing the water to see if you were interested?

It was a sh*t coup but a coup nonetheless.

The final outcome might have been but their actions and intent were very real.

Weirdly, I reckon most of us would actually get on alright in a pub. I think t’internet tends to dehumanise the people involved and make them more belligerent. I’ve always had a laugh with the handful of people I have met (although they probably low-key think I’m a bell end). Maybe our handsome, smiling faces would have a positive effect on each other in real life.

Yes, it will have your user name and squad number on the back. Bonus points for red face paint, Jester hats and Jihadis strapped with dynamite.

I thought the same about the onion/mace video and the fact that the woman was so obviously holding an onion and wiping it in her face, surely it couldn’t be real. Then again, there are Trump supporters who are genuinely that thick so, I dunno.

When we finally see the back of Covid, I’m organising a Saints Web night out in Maidstone. After all the good times we’ve had there virtually, we need a decent get together in real life.