sadoldgit

Sadly only one more episode to go but what a show this has been. A brutal take down if the Murdochs and others of their ilk, last night’s episode was particularly insightful into the way that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. A regular poster on here once famously told us that socialism was “dangerous”. If you need any more proof of the dangers of capitalism then you need to binge watch this show. The acting, script writing, pacing and shooting are all first class. The subject matter is particularly pertinent at the moment with political shifts to the right aided by a media that is only too happy to propagate lies and misinformation to a gullible public. If you haven’t caught it yet, do. Probably the closest thing we have to a modern day Shakespearean epic with tragedy and dark comedy rolled into one. Logan Roy’s eulogy by his brother last night needs to be read out at Murdoch’s funeral when he dies. Priceless.

Therein lies the problem. With social media nowadays assumptions and conjecture get widely disseminated very quickly and before you know it, become “facts”. Misinformation spreads like wildfire thanks to the ease of communication and the huge public desire for information. You can’t blame any club for trying to keep their cards close to their chests and trying to control the narrative, but at the same time the huge interest to find out what is going on creates a vacuum that needs to be filled. As we know, much of what it is filled with invariably comes from someone’s vivid imagination. I don’t envy SR, or anyone else running a football club for that matter. They came in with great expectations after the doldrums of the Gao reign and not only have they failed to take us forwards, they have actually taken us backwards (the old adage be careful what you wish for springs to mind). I do not doubt that decisions have been made with the best of intentions and for reasons that have well thought through from their end. Isn’t that all we can ask of a management team, that they do their best to make the right decisions at the right time? I am sure that they didn’t deliberately get the recruitment wrong and would imagine they they are just as frustrated as we are over the poor performances and, ultimately, relegation. It is bad enough for us. If you are part of the team that made various wrong calls, I imagine it feels worse as the buck stops with you. That doesn’t make them immune to criticism, but at the same time, if you are not sitting in board room meetings you really do not know why various decisions were made and what other variables were at play. As has been said, we often hear, years later, of certain managers and players who were being considered at the time but didn’t happen for one reason or another. SR aren’t going anywhere anytime soon so we have to hope that they have learned lessons from this dreadful season and put measures into place to improve and take the club forward again next season. Every season three clubs find themselves in exactly the same position that we are in and there is no immunity for clubs like us. Yes, it sucks, but I believe that the owners, Ralph, Jones and Selles will all be feeling choked about this season too and whatever their shortcomings, no one deliberately set out to get us relegated.

Apparently Johnson has banged up Carrie for a third time. At a time when there are concerns about the level of migration to this country, perhaps we should consider forcing this one man population explosion to have a vasectomy ✂️🍒

I heard an interview with him recently when he was asked about how he felt about losing in three different ways by the interviewer and on each occasion he managed to answer the same way while managing, parrot fashion, to shoehorn in working day and night to deliver for the country along with his 5 pledges. Reminds me of the meaningless “strong and stable government” mantra under May. The Tories have completely run out of ideas and gas. Sunak is so far removed from knowing what “normal people” want and need it is embarrassing but they can’t get rid of him before the next election so the lame duck party is stuck with an AI programmed parrot and now, hopefully, their goose is finally cooked.

Another day, another vile report that demonstrates the complete lack of humanity displayed by our current Home Secretary and would be next leader of the Tory Party. And some would have us believe that this is a bunch of “pinkos”. Another step towards the move to becoming a NatC party. I can imagine her physically signing every letter herself with one hand whilst smirking and stroking a fluffy white cat with the other. https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/16/afghan-families-yorkshire-eviction-letters-from-suella-braverman

When Nigel Farage says this it is pretty clear that the rats are heading for the lifeboats. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/brexit-has-failed-nigel-farage-b1081352.html

Whilst the right wing media ignored The Haunted Pencil’s admission of Gerrymandering because they were too busy slagging off Starmer for future Gerrymandering by looking at lowering the voting age and giving the vote to settled foreign nationals. Meanwhile we have a small bunch of right wing nut jobs (NatCons) looking to undermine Sunak and the odious Suella Braverman making her pitch for the leadership of the Tory Party. Fair play to Starmer (so far) for rapidly dealing with any sniff of Momentum disruption within his party. Sunak on the other hand does nothing whilst the nasty faction of his party get the same news coverage as Sunak does with Zelensky. If he had any balls he would sack Braverman but he won’t so she will continue to embarrass him and continue to lose more floating votes. Starmer knows what Blair knew. For Labour to win elections now days they have to appeal to the centrists. What Sunak needs to understand is that is where the votes are and the more media attention the far right of his party get, the more he is on course to get destroyed in next year’s election.

It seems that I made a cock of myself by arguing that my vote in a true Blue constituency is wasted in the first past the post system (if I vote for any party apart from Tory) whereas it will not be wasted in a PR system as it will be included in the way that the seats are proportionality allocated according to votes polled. If I remember correctly I think the usual suspects argued that the vote could still be wasted if the party I vote for don’t poll enough to win a seat. Nonsense of course because the vote has been positive and in play during the whole electoral process. I have lived in dyed in the wool Tory constituencies all my voting life and it is a cast iron certainty that the Tory MP will win no matter which box I tick. That is a wasted vote. If I cast a vote for a smaller party and they don’t poll enough to win one seat, to me that is not a wasted vote as it has been included in the electoral process right up to the final distribution of the seats in the House. The fact that I don’t consider that as a wasted vote is apparently, making a cock of myself. https://www.makevotesmatter.org.uk/

You make a right cock of yourself every time you post. Perhaps you should take your own advice? Starmer has said this morning that it is not a priority for Labour (whilst looking at voting rights for EU citizens and lowering the voting age in England???) so it will down to the LinDems to get it on the table if there is a hung Parliament.

Ideally they will both ignore this thread (you don’t need a button Duckie, you just make a choice not to click on it) and leave it to the grown ups. Whilst PR is not the most pressing item on most people’s agenda at the moment, it does needs to be addressed if we are ever going to have something approaching a proper democracy in this country. It makes no sense when one party can poll significantly fewer votes per seat than another and it is high time that each party is given a number of seats in the House commensurate with their share of the poll. It could well lead to more coalition Governments in future but to my mind that is no bad thing if it prevents the abuse of power that we have seen from various Tory administrations in the last few years. I stopped voting for the LibDems when Nick Clegg foolishly gave power to Cameron and have seen very little from them since to entice me to vote for them again. They are not going to win a majority next year, but they could well hold the balance of power and Ed Davey has a golden opportunity to put right what Clegg cocked up. Given what happened in many of the local election results there is every chance that there will be more tactical voting next year. It is possible that Labour will get a working majority, but Starmer would be wise to keep the other opposition parties onside just to make extra sure that we get the change of government this country needs. We shouldn’t have to vote for a different candidate/party in order to get a desired outcome, but until the voting system in this country is overhauled so that the seats in Parliament actually represents the number of votes cast, we need to vote tactically (unless you want more of the same of course).

If you read my post my Eurovision tip came second 👍

Strange that the Tories get a kicking in the local elections yet right wing members of their party criticise the party for not being right wing enough! Here’s a tip, people don’t care about your far right ideologies and crusades against the small boats, trans people and other so called enemies of the state. They care about the cost of living crisis and the economy. Starmer is no fool. He can see the way to get the Tories out is to encourage tactical voting. There are plenty of constituencies that will never vote Labour but might go with the LibDems. We have even had a true blue constituency turn Green in the local election in Folkestone & Hythe. I’d be more than happy with a Labour/LibDem coalition and it will help Starmer keep the far Left at bay. It is going to take more than one term to undo the mess that we are currently in but at least we are on course to make a start. Perhaps we can also get Proportional Representation back on the table too!

It doesn’t take much does it? Given all the crap going on in the world (and our football club) at the moment anything that distracts is welcome. A pleasant change to see the news dominated by a bit of fun and frivolity before it is all back to doom and gloom next week. If Sunak wanted to improve his ratings in the polls he should think about dressing himself and the rest of his dire front bench as drag queens. He might take people’s minds off of the mess he and his party have made of the country over the last 13 years and provide a bit of a distraction in the interminable wait until the next General Election. If the likes of Suella Braverman are going to act like pantomime villains, they may as well look like them too. I’m voting for Finland. Anyone who bases their choreography on Popeye deserves to win although Ukraine will probably get the lions share of the votes again.

Thought for the Day…🤔 Why do our brave small group of Protectors of all things Non Woke, Turkish, Weston SS, Lord Duckhunter and hypochondriac, never, ever, go after the daft posts and retweets from Delldays/Batman/Alexei? One of their own I guess, given their penchant for sixth form level “ironic” choices of avatars. One of them even tried to make an issue out of Cloggy’s avatar whilst completely ignoring the more “laddish” avatar of choice from Master Bates. Second Thought for the Day…🤔 Why, when I used to listen to TalkSport and occasionally post about what I had heard, it was not an issue, yet now I listen to LBC and occasionally post about what I have heard, it is (to the group above)?

No I don’t know that. I do know that Harry had said that neither of them wanted him to marry her. William may be adopting a pragmatic stance nowadays but Harry, according to his book, still has issues. I also think that it would feel a bit strange for them to attend the coronation of their father with his former mistress in the very place where they attended the funeral service for their mother, both on the World stage.Or maybe they were absolutely fine with it and I am just projecting? As for my “snidey misogynistic description” of Camilla. She is factually an old woman and the coronation was all about the crowning of King Charles 111. She was just technically a plus one. Before you get yourself into a lather, on Have I Got News For You, Ian Hislop referred to her as the “Slapper Consort”. Probably worse than anything I have called her. Yes, of course time moves. Of course things move on. But there are plenty of historical occasions that are not forgotten. I think there are still plenty of people who feel unhappy about Camilla’s part in the break up of his marriage to Diana.

I am not sure that 20 years makes any difference to the way that William and Harry feel about it.

Further evidence, if any were needed, that the further right you are on the political spectrum, the less intelligent you are. These people seem incapable of reading plain English without finding a way to twist it and use it in the furtherance of their own warped political agenda. We have the most right wing and authoritarian Government in many decades yet this particular poster will still have us believe they are a bunch of pinkos. Tell that to the peaceful protesters who were arrested at the coronation. They make be a bit pink when it comes to the economy (which they have completely f****d up) but when it comes to the rest, Lineker was spot on. Not only are they using similar language, they are using similar tactics. Crack down on freedom of expression and pitch elements of society against each other whilst lining their own pockets and sorting themselves and their mates out and running the country for their own benefit. The only surprise from the local election results is that there are still people (like Duckie) out there who are shameless enough to put a cross by a Tory candidate. Mugs and puppets, the lot of them.

I sat opposite someone at our village Coronation brunch yesterday who used to know Andrew Parker-Bowles and said that he was a deeply unpleasant man who “shagged anything that moved”. He wasn’t very complimentary about his ex-wife either.

Not me personally but there is no way she would have been accepted as Queen 20 years ago so why is it ok now? She had been making Charles very happy for years, even when he was married to someone else.

We might be rubbish at most thing but still lead the world when it comes to this pageantry malarkey. The only thing that spoiled the day was that old women following the King around all day and even managed to blag a crown of her own. The 3 cheers from the servicemen was very moving. I could imagine Batman standing to attention and pledging his allegiance to the King whilst wearing his one medal, the Distinguish Frying Cross (awarded for cooking fry ups for the men using very hot fat). 🥓🍳🎖️

If anyone was ever in doubt that this person is Delldays/Batman, just read this post.

I have missed the reasoning behind this, but how come the old trout has been crowned Queen when she is Queen Consort? Why had “Consort” been dropped and why was Philip not a King and just a Prince?

It happens to be true and not an excuse, but knock yourself out.

When the Guardian cartoon thing first kicked off the graphic I saw was cropped and just showed the Richard Sharp caricature. Anyone cognisant of Rowson’s work will know how brutal his depictions of his targets are and I thought his cartoon of Sharp was quite tame in comparison to those of the likes of Johnson, Sunak, Braverman, Raab etc. However, there is a lot more going on in the complete cartoon though and as Rowson has said himself, his actual intention and target has been sidelined by the anti-Semitism row. Anyway to get to the main point, I knew nothing about the origin of the pink squid reference in the Goldman Sachs box carried by Sharp nor the whole vampire squid thing that was aimed at that bank until enlightened by The Spectator piece. For those who are curious this is where it comes from, Rolling Stone magazine in 2010. An interesting (but very long) read. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/the-great-american-bubble-machine-195229/amp/

I have managed to get a screen shot but can’t PM it to you as I am not a subscriber nor can I upload it for the same reason. I think I found a work around though although it is only shows the first screen. However it shows my current and previous stalkers so here you go… https://imgur.com/a/u0fPsCL Justifying racism? Please do me the courtesy of telling me how you come to that conclusion. Before you do though please read the article by Fraser Nelson published in The Spectator that I posted earlier. He has a far greater insight into this issue than either you or I. Then perhaps give your own head a wobble.