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Talk is cheap, join the call on #UniversitiesUK to negotiate an end to the pension dispute #USSstrike #UCUstrike thndr.me/8agVwy http://thndr.me/8agVwy
The executive, crowned or otherwise
With regard to Mr Speaker's comments on President Trump, I do recall that there is precedent for the Speaker defying the executive. At the time, William Lenthall declared that he had neither eye to see, nor tongue to speak, except as the house was pleased to direct him. If certain honourable members wish to contest Mr Speaker's decision, they are, of course, welcome to test whether their constituents are of the same opinion.
Certainly, Lenthall held no high opinion of himself - his self-penned epitaph was vermis sum - but his name and his words live down the ages. It may, of course, be endlessly argued* what was meant by that, though the question raised is not whether Mr Speaker was right in his decision, but whether the Commons may defy the Executive, crowned or otherwise.
It is, perhaps, worth recalling what Patrick Henry said in Virginia’s House of Burgesses:
Caesar had his Brutus — Charles the first, his Cromwell — and George the third —
‘Treason’, cried the Speaker
may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it.
Make the most of the example indeed.
*this year I have argued, at some length, what was meant by verbosa ac grandis epistola venit a Capreis.
OKCS’s questions (1-10)
Via the Know Direction podcast, Owen KC Stephens, one of the leading RPG writers of the past few years, is doing a series of 100 questions on his blog about RPGs. Partly because I need to ease back into the habit of writing and partly because I’m staying at a B&B away from home for work, here are my answers to the first ten.
#1. Would you prefer a GM be entirely beholden to the game rules and die rolls, or secretly make changes if it leads to a more interesting, or more dramatic, or more fulfilling game session?
I’d prefer them to secretly make changes. It’s easy enough to do, and can help the story.
#2. Give one concrete example of when a GM fudging die rolls or rules might lead to a more interesting, or more dramatic, or more fulfilling game session?
Only one? When fighting the BBEG, I’ve added hitpoints so that the boss will go down in memorable fashion. When the spellcasters are out of magic and the rogue can’t make a flank, that lucky crit from the bard’s bow, or the death-or-glory charge from the dwarf at the back makes a session you’ll really remember.
#3. Does it make a difference to your preference if the GM is entirely open about making changes? What if the GM can hide any change so you never even suspect it?
I would prefer to live in ignorance, thinking that my rogue’s mad charge to stop someone from dying was actually as amazing as I thought it was at the time.
#4. Do you consider altering NPC attitudes or personalities from their originally planned starting points, or changing the plot of a future game session based on interesting ideas that come up in play, to be GM fudging, or just normal GM activities, or both?
I’d say normal GM activities. If you develop a particular relationship with an NPC, it should develop as naturally as a relationship between PCs. Particularly if the relationship is, ahem, strained, you a well-timed re-appearance of an adversary can really liven things up. Besides, it adds to the realism of the world you’re creating.
#5. Should a GM be able to veto the color of a PC’s eyes? Or is that none of the GM’s business?
The GM should be able to, but should never have to.
#6. Is the GM a player in an RPG session?
Yes, absolutely. They have a particular role, and are more able to shape events, but they shouldn’t be apart from the others.
#7. Should the GM roll dice in secret, roll dice in public view, or roll dice with varying secrecy as appropriate to the nature of the roll?
I’ll go for door number three. Mostly, I don’t make much fuss about rolling dice, and just throw them somewhere convenient and don’t think much about whether the PC’s can see them. In all likelihood, the one or two on that side will be able to see if they care to, and that’s about it. If the PCs are looking for that sneaky svirfneblin at the back of the room, my stealth checks are going to be hidden. The only times I make a fuss about a dice roll are when it’s a matter of life and death. If my glabrezu has crit a character that’s already halfway down and I could take the PC out, that’s happening out front. If I have to make a will save or the PCs win the day, aleam in mensam iacio. I encourage players to do the same, so that they have their moments in the limelight.
#8. Is being the GM a chore, or a privilege?
I’m not sure it’s a privilege, not least because GMs tend to be in short supply. It’s definitely not a chore; I enjoy, I think, all the different bits of GMing, from reading the adventure to preparing handouts. Most of all, I do enjoy being the ringmaster. It does feel special when you’ve done a good job and you know that you’ve done a good job; not because people tell you, but because you can see and hear it in how they’re going over the story again.
#9. How much of the success of an RPG session is determined by the quality and actions of the GM? Would you prefer an awesome RPG ruleset with an awesome adventure and awesome other players run by a mediocre GM; or a mediocre RPG ruleset with a mediocre adventure and mediocre other players under an awesome GM?
I’ve not played that many different systems, and I don’t think I’ve really played any bad ones. Ultimately, though, a good group of players will compensate for deficiencies in a ruleset, but not vice versa, so I think that, as long as the ruleset is completely borked beyond usefulness, I’d go for the players. That said, players and GMs can accidentally (or not so accidentally) bork a ruleset.
#10. What is your pet peeve about GMs, expressed in a way that makes it generic and impossible to connect to any one specific GM?
It’s not about GMs specifically, but they do it as much as other players. I hate - hate - when people shake the dice in their hands for an interminable amount of time. There’s no need for it. You can just pick the dice up and roll them out of your hand. Instead, we have this stupid rattling that distracts everyone and breaks the tension and immersion. Worst of all, they start doing it before they’ve finished talking. You can’t hear what they’re saying, and they drift off, half a dozen dice-shakes later, before they roll the damn things. I could just about forgive picking them up and giving them a couple of quick jumbles in your cupped hands, but the endless jarring is not just unnecessary, but actually detracts from my enjoyment of the game.
This Is The Couch Of My Dreams
They’re not that good; they’re on wheels, and they roll about everywhere cosntantly.
A question about Jeremy Corbyn
A question, honestly asked, for my friends who are more inclined towards Jeremy Corbyn.
Yesterday, Shami Chakrabarti presented her report on anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. As people will know, there were a couple of incidents. One is that a journalist present asked a question that could be seen as being, depending on your point of view, somewhere between insensitive and outright racist. Specifically, one Marc Wadsworth said "I saw that the Telegraph handed a copy of a press release to Ruth Smeeth MP so you can see who is working hand in hand."
That offence was given should be obvious; there were literally gasps of astonishment at what was said and Ruth Smeeth left the room in tears. I would have hoped that Jeremy would have immediately and directly challenged what Mr Wadsworth said.
The second incident was something that Jeremy said - the comparison of "the Netanyahu government" to "various self-styled Islamic states or organisations". Whatever one's opinions on that, I would hope we can all agree that it was a crassly stupid thing to say at an event about combating anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.
I'm fairly sure that, if, in one of my seminars, someone asked a question like that and I didn't challenge it, I would be having a conversation with someone from the department. I'm also pretty sure that someone would suggest I stop digging if, in that conversation, I said something, well, crassly stupid.
I am disappointed that Jeremy did not immediately and directly challenge what Mr Wadsworth said. I also think that what he said was always going to take attention away from what the event was about.
If he is so - frankly - timid and has such a poor grasp of the media cycle, does that not at least count against him as leader?
What is the EU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoLjqoIq-hA&t=2m53s What isn’t the EU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoLjqoIq-hA&t=3m56s How did the EU come ...
British followers:
these are two different documentaries which I found to be really informative in finding out what the EU is (I feel that although we may know vaguely what it is, we don’t really have a complete picture of it) and whether or not we should vote to leave or remain on June 23rd
so if you haven’t decided yet, or even if you have (hopefully these should reinforce your reasons for deciding whatever you’ve decided), I’d suggest giving these a watch
I’ve not watched the other one, but Brexit the Movie’s a fucking terrible documentary. It’s full of blatant misinformation (like most of the Leave campaign’s argument tbh). Let me attempt to summarise the problems here:
1. The constant populist rhetoric like “we the people” and “surrendering our independence”. I’m not even sure how to address this other than point out that it’s empty bollocks rhetoric.
It doesn’t exactly reflect well on a bunch of rich, privately educated bastards to who’ve got more in common with the average Tory MP than the average person attacking EU bureaucrats trying to make themselves look salt of the earth.
2. They aren’t internally consistent. They criticise the EU for not having trade deals with most of the rest of the world, but also say trade deals mean fuck all. So, which is it?
3. They over-romanticise Switzerland. For one, they claim Switzerland’s got the highest export rate in the world (bollocks; they’re 17th). And also they’ve got a high quality of life, yes, they’re also incredibly conservative and isolated. Plus they’ve got a terrible system of direct democracy that resulted in things such as the ban on mosque minarets.
And the other thing that they didn’t mention was that Switzerland has to abide by EU laws that they get no hand in making.
4. They whinge about the number of EU laws on X, Y, or Z, but why’s the number of regulations on something matter? They don’t name a single one whose contents they actually find problematic. Personally, I don’t give a shit how many laws there are on something. I care what the laws themselves actually stipulate.
5. There’s a blatant right wing libertarian bias here. They claim outright that the UK in the 50′s and 60′s was the most state run economy in Europe. Fucking bullshit; that’d be the Soviet fucking Union and its allies, or hell, even Sweden would’ve been more socialist back then than us.
6. They blame the EU for stirring up the growth of right wing parties in Europe, yet they’re interviewing people like Nigel Farage (the leader of a far right bigoted party). That pretty much speaks for itself.
6. They bring up the fact that not many people know who the cabinet ministers of the EU Commission are as if this is some kind of intentional conspiracy. In reality, it’s just evidence that we need better civic education. Ask the average British person who their MP is and a lot of people won’t know that either.
7. Constant, meaningless statements about how unique and wonderful Britain and its people are compared to Continental Europe, e.g. “In Britain, we’ve always been suspicious of this idea that people need to be told what to do”. Again, it’s empty patriotic rhetoric. We’ve got an unelected law making body (the largest outside the People’s Republic of China) full of unelected peers, bishops, former MP’s, and other rich cunts helping decide our laws and we’re a monarchy. We’re not exactly in the best position to be lecturing other countries about how much more democratic we are.
8. Towards the end they make a fucking laughable prediction about how if we break away from the EU, we could become a massive trading partner like we did in the 19th century.
Except back then we had massive secondary industries like coal, steel, cotton mills, etc. And let’s not forget having a massive fucking empire full of resources to exploit. We haven’t got that anymore. How the fuck are we supposed to become a massive world power without all that, arsehole?
9. Speaking of empire, they praise the empire as a time of great entrepeanership and free trade whilst blatantly ignoring the fact that the UK had its own protectionist system known as the “imperial preference” system. Basically, trade from colonies and commonwealth dominions was prioritised over those from other countries (and that included the United States just to be clear). So, that’s another example of blatant hypocrisy.
10. They repeat the tired old argument about how if the UK left the EU, we could persue all maner of trade with the rest of the world, particularly China and Australia.
It doesn’t exactly bode well that China and Australia’s leaders (and those of other countries) have come out openly against Brexit. But you know, who gives a toss about facts?
11. They constantly dismiss the opinions of universities by saying the EU’s done nothing but buy the loyalty of universities and other high up organisations. But the EU funds plenty of projects that aren’t just for universities. Here in Rotherham, a crossroads was built with the help of EU money where there used to be a really inconvenient roundabout near the police station.
But also, of course universities are gonna care where their money comes from, especially considering the Brexit side have no coherent plan about how to make up for the lack of EU funds beyond vague promises about how we’ll fund it ourselves.
12. That brings me to the next point. They mention that the UK gets less back from the EU in funding than it gives. This is technically true, but misleading, because it’s not just about total money spent. It’s about HOW it’s spent and its long term effect. And if we remove these things, what will the outcome be? Quite simply, we’ve got no idea, and that’s precisely why Brexit’s such a dangerous idea.
It doesn’t exactly bode well that China and Australia’s leaders (and those of other countries) have come out openly against Brexit. But you know, who gives a toss about facts?
This is just the stuff I personally feel qualified to address. I’m sure there’s plenty of other problems with it.
Even if you’re pro Brexit, this is a fucking terrible documentary. Please don’t promote it as a legitimate source of information; it’s blatant propaganda.
Perfection
It really bothers me when people say 'that is perfection'. There is a perfectly good adjective available. We don't say 'that is tallness'; we say ‘that is tall’. We don’t say ‘that is relativity’; we say ‘that is relative’. I wonder if our habit of using superlatives too liberally means that, if we want to say that our meal was a nice piece of steak, we have to compare it to the Platonic form of the steak, or if it’s people trying to use language to sound sophisticated or passionate and mangling it instead.
Minor annoyances on the ECML, courtesy of Virgin Trains
“Every day, the New York Times carries a motto in a box on its front page. "All the News That's Fit to Print," it says. It's been saying it for decades, day in and day out. I imagine most readers of the canonical sheet have long ceased to notice this bannered and flaunted symbol of its mental furniture. I myself check every day to make sure that the bright, smug, pompous, idiotic claim is still there. Then I check to make sure that it still irritates me. If I can still exclaim, under my breath, why do they insult me and what do they take me for and what the hell is it supposed to mean unless it's as obviously complacent and conceited and censorious as it seems to be, then at least I know I still have a pulse. You may wish to choose a more rigorous mental workout but I credit this daily infusion of annoyance with extending my lifespan.”
Christopher Hitchens often remarked on the bothersome masthead of the New York Times. I begin to understand how he felt when I look at the entirely more banal menu on Virgin Trains East Coast.
By way of preface, if you haven’t already been bored to tears, I travel weekly from Huntingdonshire to York. I can book well in advance, so it’s often actually cheaper to travel first class. Hence, I have the free food and drink, and so read the menu. Allow me, gentle reader, to give you a flavour:
Breakfast
Early risers, we salute you!
Start your morning just right, after all it is the most important meal of the day.
Fuck off. Just fuck off. When I am reading this, it’s about half past six in the morning and I have been up for an hour. I want coffee, not your upbeat fuckwittery. However, that is just the introit. I am then invited to order “one of our brilliant breakfast selections”:
Our truly great British breakfast...
I cannot be bothered to finish the entry. No matter how hard you try, the breakfast will have been prepared in a travelling kitchen. You cannot prepare a truly great anything in a galley moving in excess of one hundred miles per hour. This is compounded by the offering of “rare breed pork sausage”. So rare, it would seem, that they don’t know what breed of pig went into it. Gloucester Old Spot and British Saddleback may both be rare breeds, but they are not the same fucking thing. Pretending that they are the same thing is, frankly, an insult to the farmers who bust their guts looking after rare breeds.
I will save you from the porridge - apparently, “wonderfully warming” - and the “heavenly” smoked salmon. Put the thesaurus down.
The next entry that particularly offends me (there have been many minor offences in the meantime) is in the all-day section. I am offered a
“[t]ruly continental platter consisting of prosciutto, salami, Mozzarella, stuffed olives and sundried tomatoes served with mixed leaf salad and a bread roll”.
Not synthetically continental, but truly continental. Presumably, we have sufficient contempt for Virgin Trains East Coast that their mere assertion of continental origin is insufficient; they must assure us that they really fucking mean it. Why is mozzarella capitalised, but not prosciutto? I can see the case for neither or both, but not just one. How much was a Wykehamist paid to produce this codswollop?
I am later offered lemon and rosemary cake, which, I presume on the authority of Virgin Trains, is ‘luscious’, and not just alliterative. The Wensleydale is ‘cracking’, presumably latae sententiate.
While it is a minor thing, I object to this casual abuse of the English language. If it’s a fry-up, say it’s a fry-up. Stop beating the English language to make it sound like something greater, particularly when every-one knows that it’s a fucking fry-up. It’s a lump of cheese and, given its likely treatment and serving, is not wonderful.
It’s worth pointing out that, despite being a prematurely middle-aged wearer of corduroy, I am one of the least fuddy-duddy passengers in this compartment. I am not sure who they think the audience is, but neither the language nor the red and charcoal branding is going to convince anyone that you are anything other than a train company.
What particularly bothers me is that Virgin are in the process of refurbishing their trains. I suspect they have spent a considerable amount of money on changing the covering of the seats that were more than adequate, but they seem to have forgotten to do useful things like put it plug sockets, or handles on the inside of carriage doors, or toilets that reliably flush.
A hearty barley risotto? Get in the fucking sea.
Tabletop Gaming has a White Male Terrorism Problem
I am a gamer. I followed the call of Cthulhu and ran in the shadows with hackers and shamans. I traversed the ancient lands of Greyhawk, Faerun, and Eberron with companions new and old. I swung from an airship and buckled swash over London for the Kerberos Club. I threw dice and flipped cards and ground men into dust playing table-top wargames.
I don’t do that anymore.
Since July of 2015 fans of the game Malifaux have been attempting to overwhelm me with death and rape threats for no other reason than I am a woman who has opinions on the game. Wyrd Miniatures is silent on this matter and hangs up whenever anyone attempts to discuss the harassment. Given that a large number of threats identify the senders by name as Wyrd staff members, I do not find this surprising.
But that’s not what this article is about.
Keep reading
Seeing as I mentioned it in today’s seminar, I thought I should say hello to anyone from PPS who comes past. Here’s the picture of Morris and Sheldon I promised.
It’s funny how science fiction universes so often treat humans as a boring, default everyman species or even the weakest and dumbest.
I want to see a sci fi universe where we’re actually considered one of the more hideous and terrifying species.
How do we know our saliva and skin oils wouldn’t be ultra-corrosive to most other sapient races? What if we actually have the strongest vocal chords and can paralyze or kill the inhabitants of other worlds just by screaming at them? What if most sentient life in the universe turns out to be vegetable-like and lives in fear of us rare “animal” races who can move so quickly and chew shit up with our teeth?
Like that old story “they’re made of meat,” only we’re scarier.
More seriously, humans do have a number of advantages even among Terrestrial life. Our endurance, shock resistance, and ability to recover from injury is absurdly high compared to almost any other animal. We often use the phrase “healthy as a horse” to connote heartiness - but compared to a human, a horse is as fragile as spun glass. There’s mounting evidence that our primitive ancestors would hunt large prey simply by following it at a walking pace, without sleep or rest, until it died of exhaustion; it’s called pursuit predation. Basically, we’re the Terminator.
(The only other animal that can sort of keep up with us? Dogs. That’s why we use them for hunting. And even then, it’s only “sort of”.)
Now extrapolate that to a galaxy in which most sapient life did not evolve from hyper-specialised pursuit predators:
Our strength and speed is nothing to write home about, but we don’t need to overpower or outrun you. We just need to outlast you - and by any other species’ standards, we just plain don’t get tired.
Where a simple broken leg will cause most species to go into shock and die, we can recover from virtually any injury that’s not immediately fatal. Even traumatic dismemberment isn’t necessarily a career-ending injury for a human.
We heal from injuries with extreme rapidity, recovering in weeks from wounds that would take others months or years to heal. The results aren’t pretty - humans have hyperactive scar tissue, among our other survival-oriented traits - but they’re highly functional.
Speaking of scarring, look at our medical science. We developed surgery centuries before developing even the most rudimentary anesthetics or life support. In extermis, humans have been known to perform surgery on themselves - and survive. Thanks to our extreme heartiness, we regard as routine medical procedures what most other species would regard as inventive forms of murder. We even perform radical surgery on ourselves for purely cosmetic reasons.
In essence, we’d be Space Orcs.
Our jaws have too many TEETH in them, so we developed a way to WELD METAL TO OUR TEETH and FORCE THE BONES IN OUR JAW to restructure over the course of years to fit them back into shape, and then we continue to wear metal in out mouths to keep them in place.
We formed cohabitative relationships with tiny mammals and insects we keep at bay from bothering us by death, often using little analouge traps.
And by god, we will eat anything.
We use borderline toxic peppers to season our food.
We expose ourselves to potentially lethal solar radiation in the pursuit of darkening our skin.
We risk hearing loss for the opportunity to see our favorite musicians live.
We have a game where two people get into an enclosed area and hit each other until time runs out/one of them pass out
We willingly jump out of planes with only a flimsy piece of cloth to prevent us from splattering against the ground.
Our response to natural disasters is to just rebuild our buildings in the exact same places.
We climb mountains and risk freezing to death for bragging rights
We invented dogs. We took our one time predators and completely domesticated them.
On a planet full of lions, tigers and bears, we managed to advance further and faster than any other species on the planet.
Klingons and Krogan and Orcs ain’t got shit on us
We drink ethanol (in concentrations high enough to be used as an effective as microbicide or a solvent!) for the express purpose of achieving blood toxicity and disrupting normal brain function… AS A RECREATIONAL ACTIVITY!
On the same subject, we also deliberately incinerate assorted substances and then inhale the particulate-heavy smoke and vapor resulting for the same effect. EVEN IN THE FACE OF SAID SUBSTANCES BEING CARCINOGENIC, BECAUSE WE JUST DON’T GIVE A FUCK.
Humans do not have biological castes. Kill their commander and another will take its place. Soldiers left alone on a planet will start farming and manufacturing to survive. Farmers and manufacturers will take up arms and kill you if pressed. Just because two humans look different doesn’t mean they cannot do each other’s jobs.
Breeding does not kill them. A single human can mate dozens or hundreds of times in a lifetime. They often do so as recreation. Xenobiology team six believes they do not have a mating season but this is too strange to be true.
Their appendages are not designed for hitting, so they developed special training to make them very good at hitting anyhow.
The proteins making up their bodies are toxic and cause prion disease. Do not touch anything humans have touched. Do not consume earth foods. Fire does not adequately remove this contamination.
Humans perceive sixteen times the colors we do. Do not hide in bushes or vines from humans. They can distinguish your pelt from the foliage with ease.
We tried venting waste gas into the tunnels to kill the humans when they attacked. Turns out they breathe it.
Everything on their planet came from a single biological strain. They developed comprehensive genetics BEFORE they developed space travel.
They lack radio receptors and cannot be brought into compliance with right-thought simply by broadcasting to them. Even after we learned how to translate it into sound-waves one of their hatchlings drove the Great Authority mad by responding to every demand with a single question: “Why?”
#an individual human being is actually a microbiome in its own right—you are dealing with a legion each time you approach them #they carry pathological agents inside their deep tissues and this is advantageous to their health #one of the most widespread and resilient viruses on their planet is treated as mildly hazardous—even though it causes #massive disruption to the body’s homeostasis #(their young offspring endure multiple rhinovirus infections EACH YEAR yet they seem unperturbed by this) #they have developed such long lifespans that now their primary threat is their own body’s degeneration #humanity has literally figured out how to survive so long that their body gives out under them #and they are not satisfied with that #stupid willful vengeful survivalists who treat mortality like a challenge
I am speechless
Reblogging so I can reread in the morning
I think I’ve reblogged this before, but it’s well worth doing again.
This post is AWESOME. Nice to see it on my dash again in 2016.
Nice :)
Fear me.
A New Years Resolution for the Left: Stop retweeting bullshit.
It’s happening again. The slap-up, VIP meal meme won’t die - it will just transform into yet more bullshit from lefties who should know better.
The tweet above has had, at the time of writing, 185 retweets and 124 favourites. A not inconsiderable number, and a number that will no doubt grow as it propagates through Twitter.
The guy who tweeted it lives in Basingstoke, which is quite a long way south of York. How does he know Cameron met no ordinary people? The answer, of course is that he doesn’t, and like the rest of us he is basing his opinion on a handful of TV pictures and photos.
In this video, he certainly looks like he’s talking to an ‘ordinary’ bloke. He definitely encountered this ordinary person.
Cameron was apparently “surrounded by soldiers”. Is visiting the troops something that the Prime Minister is not expected to do now? Presumably a visit from the bloke who is ultimately in charge - even if you disagree with his politics - would be quite the morale boost for soldiers who have been told to miss Christmas and help out with the flood clean up?
And meeting soldiers is probably a good thing. Would it not make sense for Cameron, whose job it is to authorise the use of soldiers to at least receive updates on whether his deployment of troops is working?
And even if Cameron didn’t meet any “ordinary people”, would that really be so bad? Surely it is literally his job to be taking charge of the efforts to mitigate the floods, rather than hear “ordinary people” explain that they are unhappy because of the floods? Surely we’d prefer that the Prime Minister was having meetings with the various agencies and organisations involved, so that efforts can be coordinated?
What is “surrounded by soldiers” even supposed to mean anyway? Are we supposed to imagine that the soldiers are providing security for him, or keeping him in a bubble? I’ve no idea what his exact security arrangements are when travelling in the UK, but even if the soldiers he was pictured with were there exclusively to protect him, however much you disagree with Cameron on politics, it surely isn’t unreasonable to expect that the Prime Minister be protected?
And as for Corbyn… for a man who is apparently principled, you could frame this as a pretty shameless photo opportunity? Perhaps Corbyn is more politically savvy than I would normally give him credit for, and he thinks that by signalling his solidarity with “ordinary people” there would be an electoral advantage? If so, bravo.
But then I think this also speaks to something bigger. Surely the Leader of the Opposition should be constantly asking himself “what is the most effective thing I can do that will hold the government to account and build my electoral support so that I can win elections and implement my policy agenda”?
Perhaps the photo opportunity with some “ordinary people” is that most effective thing. But I’m sceptical. Should he not be speaking to the media about the disastrous Tory cuts to flood defences? Or strategizing with Labour MPs to whack the Tories hard on the floods? Or y’know… doing politics?
It reminds me of this story, about how Corbyn spent one weekend singing and shaking a charity bucket to raise money for refugees. Great cause, no doubt - and the people he was with were no doubt doing it sincerely. For ordinary people like us, there isn’t too much we can do to help people in Syria.
But again, was that time well spent for the Leader of the Opposition? Was there literally nothing else that he could been doing? Corbyn might have signalled how virtuous he is by carrying sandbags and singing, but will his actions lead to policy outcomes that will make things better for flood victims or refugees? I’m struggling to see how.
The worst thing about bullshit like this is that despite being a leftie and someone who disagrees with almost everything he does, it makes me write in defence of David Fucking Cameron.
Just like with the slap-up VIP meal, if you want Labour and lefties to succeed in politics, we shouldn’t blindly promote this bullshit. It doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, makes our side just as bad as the right, and makes us look insane.
8-foot giant squid pillow.
You’ll need:
2 yards of felt
1 yard of patterned fabric (I suggest a polka dot-type pattern so it looks like suction cups)
1 medium piece of black felt, 1 medium piece of white felt (for the eyes)
white thread, black thread and thread of the same color as the felt you’re using
pins
about 5 lbs. of stuffing
a couple big sheets of paper to draw your pattern
You can find many of these things down at the many places on Fabric Row, on 4th Street between Bainbridge and Catherine. Pearl, at 417 South Street, sometimes has stuffing if you can’t find any.
First, you need to draw out your patterns. Here’s a basic template to get you started, although most of the measurements are reasonably fudgeable. If in the likely event you don’t have any four-foot-long pieces of paper lying around, just tape a few pieces together.
Once you’ve drawn out your eight patterns, it’s time to cut the fabric. Pin the pattern to the fabric, laid flat, and cut out the following, leaving a half an inch or so of extra fabric around the edge of the pattern:
FOR THE ARMS: 8 felt and 8 fabric cutouts of piece 1
FOR THE, UH, LONGER ARMS: 2 felt and 2 fabric cutouts of piece 2
FOR THE BODY: 2 felt cutouts of piece 3
FOR THE FIN: 4 felt cutouts of piece 4
FOR THE HEAD: 1 felt cutouts of piece 6
FOR THE EYES: 2 white felt cutouts of piece 7 and 2 black felt cutouts of piece 8
So now you’ve got all your pieces ready, it’s time to start sewing them together. I did mine by hand because my sewing machine is busted and I get a kind of Zen buzz from sewing by hand, but if you have a non-busted one I recommend that you use it as it will be MUCH EASIER. You’re going to be sewing everything with the nice side of the fabric facing in, then turning it inside out to stuff it.
THE ARMS: (To make a quilted pattern that looks like suckers, see this other post). Pin together one patterned fabric piece 1 and one felt piece 1 (with the nice sides facing the inside). Sew down around the U-shape and back up, leaving the top open. Then turn the arm inside out, stuff it (it’s easiest to do both of these things if you sort of scrunch it up like you’re trying to put on a pair of tights, excuse the non-dude-friendly reference) and sew the top closed. Do the same for the other seven arms and rejoice in the fact that this is the most tedious part. Same deal with the two long arms, they’re just harder to stuff.
THE FINS: Pin together two of your piece 4s and sew together the curvy outer edge. Turn the piece inside out, so the seam you just sewed is on the inside, and start sewing up the other side, stuffing gradually as you go along. You should end up with a triangle-ish puffy thing. Repeat for the other two piece 4s.
THE BODY: Put down one piece 3, then place the two fins you have down with the point up and the curvy side pointing in, then make a sandwich by putting the other piece 3 down on top. Pin it all together and sew around the edges with the two fins still inside, as shown. Turn it inside out and move on to…
THE HEAD: So take piece 6 and the ten arms you’ve already done. Lay the arms, fabric side facing you, out with the arms’ top seams in a line half an inch from the top of piece 6. The order should be arm arm arm arm BIG ARM arm arm arm arm BIG ARM. The legs should be almost entirely covering piece 6. Pin them in place and sew a straight line through the individual legs seams to attach the legs to piece 6.
When you pick up the other side of piece 6, you now have something resembling a really weird untied hula skirt. Sew together the two 9-inch ends of piece 6 with the fabric side of the arms on the outside, and keep it inside out for the moment.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: Fit the open end of the body through the arms (still fabric side facing out) and pull the edge all the way through the felt cylinder so it’s even with the edge that DOESN’T have arms attached to it. Sew around the diameters of the head cylinder and the body cylinder to attach them, then pull the legs down over the head and you’re almost done!
Stuff the body, then seal it off by sewing piece 5 over the open end (even if you do have a functional sewing machine, you’ll probably have to do this part by hand).
THE EYES: Sew the black circles on the white circles and whipstitch the eyes onto the head. You do this last because you can’t tell where they’re going to end up on the end product if you put them on before stuffing the body.
Yep. (at The Waggon & Horses.)
An interesting Persian saying
One of the people I share a work room with at uni is Iranian, and he’s just told me of a fantastic Persian saying: “may you not die, so I can kill you”
I am by John Clare
As today is #NationalPoetryDay, I thought I'd share a poem called 'I am' by John Clare. I'd never heard of Clare, even though he's apparently really rather famous, until his name was taken by Frankenstein's Monster in one of the best recent television shows, Penny Dreadful. Anyway, here's the poem:
I am—yet what I am none cares or knows; My friends forsake me like a memory lost: I am the self-consumer of my woes— They rise and vanish in oblivious host, Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes And yet I am, and live—like vapours tossed
Into the nothingness of scorn and noise, Into the living sea of waking dreams, Where there is neither sense of life or joys, But the vast shipwreck of my life’s esteems; Even the dearest that I loved the best Are strange—nay, rather, stranger than the rest.
I long for scenes where man hath never trod A place where woman never smiled or wept There to abide with my Creator, God, And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept, Untroubling and untroubled where I lie The grass below—above the vaulted sky.