MemberlistThe Library Index  FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   RegisterRegister   ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 
CABINET OF CURIOSITIES (NEW CONCEPTS)
Reply to topic Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3 ... 71, 72, 73 ... 176, 177, 178  Next
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Popular Misconceptions No 446

The book I think is most overrated by Celeste Ng
My Struggle by Karl Ove Knausgård. What really frustrates me about it is that, for centuries, extremely average straight white men get volumes to tell every detail of their lives, while stories by anyone else (especially women and people of colour) have to fight to be published at all. Guardian

You know serious soppiness is about when you read that gay white men are under-represented in the literary trades. Gadzooks, they're everywhere despite being 2% of the statistical universe. Poor old Celeste just couldn't stop herself in time.

But let's move to the serious point. Nobody could possibly contest that white men get most of the gigs but what Ms Ng doesn't realise is that white men have to fight to be published too. Against the millions of other white men. But also against the millions of women and people of colour. Publishers simply don't care -- if they think they can make money out of you they'll publish you. So quit blaming us.
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Popular Misconceptions No 447

Mussolini's War: Fascist Italy from Triumph to Collapse
All agreed that his great mistake had been to think that the army could be led by men appointed for their politics rather than their military skills. And, as John Gooch spells out again and again in his scrupulous account of Mussolini’s wars, Italy at every stage lacked resources, which made her ever more fatally beholden to Germany, her dangerous and untrustworthy ally.

I cannot begin to tell you what utter crap this is. At every stage Italy had overwhelmingly larger resources than her opponents. She lost every time because Italians couldn't fight, wouldn't fight and didn't fight. Sorry and all that but that's the long and short of it.
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

I've been finding out about the London cable car (the Emirates Airline as we call it). It's mainly unloved but, it seems to me, that it's in such an unlovely byway out there in East London, that it is neither fish nor fowl, tourist trap or commuter boon. But it's cheap and quick to build.The principle should be widened so that London is covered with these things sufficiently, plus interchanges, so it becomes a new transport medium. It's da future. If we don't do something post-Crossrail, the northern powerhouse freaks will get all our money.
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

The Other Side of Dunkirk (BBC-2)

I'll put this here because it's a companion piece to the book review above. We are promised a revisionist account of the

powerful myths and misconceptions that have shaped our understanding of the moment which changed the course of WW2

Good-oh! Just to explain: there's one reason why the Germans won in 1940 and it was the fact that German soldiers were tons better than French, Belgian and British soldiers. End of. So we get all the familiar revisionism stuff about how we had more soldiers, we had better weapons, we had the better strategic position etc etc and then ... you can hear the voice-over tremulously pausing on the brink of saying something important... and then, with a whimper, it's back to 'it was how they were used' and 'how the Manstein Plan wrong-footed us' and 'fleeing refugees got in the way' ... and on and on and on.

What I find weird is that I'm proud of the fact that we're not as good as the Germans at soldiering. Why can't anyone else be? What are we ashamed of exactly?
Send private message
Ishmael


In: Toronto
View user's profile
Reply with quote

It's a good point. The British were practiced at being civilized gents. They had to learn how to be otherwise.
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Another myth. Neither we nor the Americans (or the Canadians) learned to be anything. Since we had the sea between us and the Germans we simply let the Russians win the war for us. But, if you want to be completely accurate, we were able to build up such a huge disparity in numbers of soldiers and weaponry we could just about beat the Germans most of the time.

There was no sign of any new-found incivility. Apart from the Americans tending to shoot prisoners (and we did a bit). Dunno about the Canadians.
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Weekends are a smoking treatsville chez Harper (passive smokers welcome) so every Saturday I get two packs along with my Guardian. One pack per day, neato or what?
"Two packs of ...er..."
"Carlton?"
"No, not Carlton ... um, can't remember the name. Superking ... originals .. er..."
"That's Carlton."
"No, I meant the cheap ones."
"Carlton are the cheapest we do."
"Oh well, can't be helped. What else do you have?"
"B & H?"
"No."
"Chesterfield?"
"Good God, no."
"Well, look, you have two packs of Carlton Original Superkings every Saturday."
"Oh, all right, if that's all you've got, I suppose they'll have to do."
Send private message
Chad


In: Ramsbottom
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Smoking harms memory by reducing the amount of oxygen that gets to the brain. Studies have shown that people who smoke find it more difficult to put faces with names than do nonsmokers.

Next time, send a non smoker to get your fags.
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

You say these things as though they're the simplest thing in the world. I had to get someone to countersign some official form or other and realised Hatty, two counties away, was the most convenient.

On a more helpful note, every writer needs a fag (o.n.o) since it's one of the few occupations for which there is no visible means of support. I don't mean the lack of reward -- that is assumed -- but the loneliness of the act of creation. Making DVD's are a group exercise and a bit easier though I wouldn't have made the Deserts one if I'd known how hostile the reception was to be. Better than careful ignoral but only just.
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

How can we get Essex people to take more risks than they already are?
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Your item has left our International Logistics Centre and is on its way to you. More information will be available as it travels through the network.

After two months travelling through the locked down networks of India and Singapore this could be good news or it could be bad news.
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Those of you who take an interest in my washing machine travails -- what, all of you? I'm deeply touched -- will remember that we last left it swamping my kitchen with water. Now it is blowing my fuses. After going through various expediencies without a supply of a) screw drivers and b) 13A fuses but with c) a flair for bodging and cannibalising, I find I must 'call the man in'. That man could be a combination electrician/washing machine repair man who hasn't appeared on Watchdog or he could be from Argos bearing a new washing machine but circumstances, which I won't go into, make either course unattractive.

So what about a mini washing machine? I did this to great effect when my oven gave up the biscuit and I got a desktop oven. As long as the washing machine doesn't need 'plumbing in' it would be just the job. Advice from wild caravanners, please. Or their wives more likely even in this day and age.
Send private message
Chad


In: Ramsbottom
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

You may laugh but I am seriously considering various hand-cranked modern versions (eg Argos £49.99 here https://media.4rgos.it/s/Argos/1167296_R_SET?w=270&h=270&qlt=75&fmt=webp because washing machines are not designed for people like me where volume, time and quality are not issues. Don't get me wrong -- I'd give my remaining eye-teeth to return to the halcyon daze of pressing a button -- but if that is not available it may be back to wash day red hands that are not as soft as my buttocks.
Send private message
Grant



View user's profile
Reply with quote

Two benefits of Coronavirus from my perspective - one, new haircut, if you can call a buzz cut a haircut, and two, very little wittering on about the anniversary of Dunkirk.

What I find amazing is that this was the war Churchill wanted and had lobbied for during the previous year. And we went down to a massive, embarrassing defeat. But the Churchill worshippers have just blanked it from their minds.
Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3 ... 71, 72, 73 ... 176, 177, 178  Next

Jump to:  
Page 72 of 178

MemberlistThe Library Index  FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   RegisterRegister   ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group