What's made you grumpy today?

[SB1500]

Indeed, but way back in Britains past does come up & bite our bum at times. Even I was taught more or less back in the 60's that Britain was a white supreme race in a roundabout way.



Primary school '61 onwards in the classroom was of course the big blackboard & to the right of it was a large map of the world with the Empire countries in salmon pink. Under the map was pictures of the white man first of all & then all the coloured races, with the message more or less we are better than you & we will educate you & poke our noses into your affairs.



This was the "norm" for us youngsters right through our primary school education, to be honest we were very young & naive & did not know any better, it's only when you look back as an adult, you see things for what they are. Get them young & you can do anything with minds.

When you look through the ages of history though there was the Egyptians, the Romans, the Vikings... every somewhat successful country / society was at it.... invading countries, taking over etc etc. Britain just happened to be the most successful, which I suppose meant ‘taking over’ which may not go down too well. Had Britain not done what it did, it’d have just become colonised by some other country possibly.

Society today seems to be angry at any form of success and sees it as the enemy, who should ‘be sorry’. It’s annoying when people treat Britons who are alive today like they have something to be sorry for when it comes to the British Empire, they don’t. Those people are long gone, independence claimed by those countries.

As far as I can tell, the only countries now that are still British territories are those who choose to be through a vote to the people like the Falklands and Northern Ireland etc. (Not without their associated controversy, mind you!). And the British government does a damn good job with all that it provides to these kinds of places. Definitely worse governments who do a lot less to be affiliated with, that’s for sure!

We have it extremely well here in N. Ireland with being part of the UK and having essentially all of the benefits and “rights” that people from across the border have as well. We also have a huge strategic opportunity with whatever happens with Brexit essentially being geographically located with a land border between the UK and Europe going forward. Opportunity should be the word, not fear or threats.

I must stop here or I’ll be accused of waffling ;-)

 

[jimboy]

Erm! you are correct, you do come across as waffling.

 

[DaveMcT]

Indeed, but way back in Britains past does come up & bite our bum at times. Even I was taught more or less back in the 60's that Britain was a white supreme race in a roundabout way.

Primary school '61 onwards in the classroom was of course the big blackboard & to the right of it was a large map of the world with the Empire countries in salmon pink. Under the map was pictures of the white man first of all & then all the coloured races, with the message more or less we are better than you & we will educate you & poke our noses into your affairs.

This was the "norm" for us youngsters right through our primary school education, to be honest we were very young & naive & did not know any better, it's only when you look back as an adult, you see things for what they are. Get them young & you can do anything with minds.

UK was no different to anywhere else but has in fact been at the forefront of racial integration. Some might disagree on the latter, but we were and remain well ahead on equality laws. Prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, USA had what amounted to apartheid laws between black and white people. Severe problems of housing ghettos still persist today.


Go to Eastern Europe (where they were under the boot of the USSR empire for nearly 50 years) and you will still see some decidedly questionable attitudes on race. It's never mentioned by polite society but it's still very much there.

 

[jimboy]

When you look through the ages of history though there was the Egyptians, the Romans, the Vikings... every somewhat successful country / society was at it.... invading countries, taking over etc etc. Britain just happened to be the most successful, which I suppose meant ‘taking over’ which may not go down too well. Had Britain not done what it did, it’d have just become colonised by some other country possibly.

Society today seems to be angry at any form of success and sees it as the enemy, who should ‘be sorry’. It’s annoying when people treat Britons who are alive today like they have something to be sorry for when it comes to the British Empire, they don’t. Those people are long gone, independence claimed by those countries.

As far as I can tell, the only countries now that are still British territories are those who choose to be through a vote to the people like the Falklands and Northern Ireland etc. (Not without their associated controversy, mind you!). And the British government does a damn good job with all that it provides to these kinds of places. Definitely worse governments who do a lot less to be affiliated with, that’s for sure!

We have it extremely well here in N. Ireland with being part of the UK and having essentially all of the benefits and “rights” that people from across the border have as well. We also have a huge strategic opportunity with whatever happens with Brexit essentially being geographically located with a land border between the UK and Europe going forward. Opportunity should be the word, not fear or threats.

I must stop here or I’ll be accused of waffling ;-)

Aye I'm agreeing with you, I was just pointing out how recently in my childhood from primary one onwards, looking back how us kids were manipulated & never thought anything at the time.

 

[jimboy]

My last post was actually aimed at DaveMcT... Hey Ho.

 

[portland_bill]

Aye I'm agreeing with you, I was just pointing out how recently in my childhood from primary one onwards, looking back how us kids were manipulated & never thought anything at the time.

Reminds me of one of Spike Milligan's quotes:

"None of us are born prejudiced, it has to be taught."

When we arrive at school we quickly get fed the prejudices handed down through generations. It starts with insults, we tend to use physical features to emphasise these, e.g. "fat idiot". The two have nothing to do with each other, but we use them as if being overweight was a cause or result of being an idiot. Next we move on to 'hating' kids from other schools.
All very silly when analysed, but difficult to eradicate.

 

[jimboy]

Forgot to mention, the primary school that I attended was in a wee coothy village out in the sticks in the north east of Scotland, who'd of thought that was a starting place for what was more or less racism.

 

[portland_bill]

Forgot to mention, the primary school that I attended was in a wee coothy village out in the sticks in the north east of Scotland, who'd of thought that was a starting place for what was more or less racism.

From a very young age we (English) are taught to be wary of the scots and the welsh. Hadrian built a wall a long time ago, and after all this time we are supposed to believe the reason is still valid.

On a lighter note, when I was very young, I thought the 'north-south divide' was shown on the map as a horizontal blue line between London and Bristol. Now I live a few miles above it, am I now a northerner?

 

[Eklipze3k]

The exact location of the North-South Divide depends entirely on where you're from. As a person from the wilds of Morayshire, the line for me is bisecting Edinburgh and Glasgow.

 

[andydiver]

Finger still throbs most of the time... 6pm Wednesday to 8.30 Saturday... Still swollen but generally a healthy pink, guess still trying to clear away the burst detritus...

 

[jimboy]

From a very young age we (English) are taught to be wary of the scots and the welsh. Hadrian built a wall a long time ago, and after all this time we are supposed to believe the reason is still valid.

On a lighter note, when I was very young, I thought the 'north-south divide' was shown on the map as a horizontal blue line between London and Bristol. Now I live a few miles above it, am I now a northerner?

The North South divide in Scotland is there for sure, buts it's all down to politics, the central belt being the bigger benefiter , but that's a whole different issue. England tends to be like this as well.

 

[varesecrazy]

The North South divide in Scotland is there for sure, buts it's all down to politics, the central belt being the bigger benefiter , but that's a whole different issue. England tends to be like this as well.

Almost making this relevant to the forum..

Italy has a longstanding faction termed the Nothern League..

Where the Wealthy north wishes to distance itself from the relatively poor south.

But of course Italian history is VERY different from the British isles.

They made a big thing several years ago.. ITALY..as a nation .. was 150 years old

 

[DaveMcT]

There's a North South Divide somewhere east of Swindon to south of Norwich. The Northern bit gets all the press attention but the South West is totally ignored. Government doesn't care as long as the London and South East doing fine thanks.
HS2 is all about getting commuters into London. CrossRail is all about getting commuters to East London.

 

[StevenRB45]

Tbf I think it's fairly safe to say the north/south doesn't exist.

The demarcation is inside or outside the M25.

 

[DaveMcT]

This is what is really going on



You will need to get the DVD to see the rest of it.

 

[StevenRB45]

Baby went to sleep for 20 mins then woke up...this is bad as a recent nap means he's not going to go to sleep..literally walked in and he's standing up jumping up and down.

Now he'd just been fed so didn't want to feed him again and don't really want him awake cos it will destroy his sleeping pattern.

So out in the car we go, but it's minus 3. That in itself is not an issue the Goodyear Vectors feel lovely and stable even on frost covered roads. The freezing fog on the other hand...my eyes feel like I've been staring at the sun. You'd just be driving along in a clear patch and immediately hit a bank 40ft visibility, just peering ahead trying to penetrate the fog looking for deer and the road.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

Baby went to sleep for 20 mins then woke up...this is bad as a recent nap means he's not going to go to sleep..literally walked in and he's standing up jumping up and down.

Now he'd just been fed so didn't want to feed him again and don't really want him awake cos it will destroy his sleeping pattern.

So out in the car we go, but it's minus 3. That in itself is not an issue the Goodyear Vectors feel lovely and stable even on frost covered roads. The freezing fog on the other hand...my eyes feel like I've been staring at the sun. You'd just be driving along in a clear patch and immediately hit a bank 40ft visibility, just peering ahead trying to penetrate the fog looking for deer and the road.

My oldest boy, when a baby, was poor to settle. We used to creep around the house, not fully closing doors etc to avoid any noise. Then my wife noticed that whenever she took him out in the pram to the shops (which involved pushing him along the pavement beside the A30 - we lived in Blackwater Hants at that time, near Camberley) he would very quickly fall asleep. The traffic noise from this main road, even back then in the very early '70's was incessant with many heavy lorries, we never did figure out why it made him fall asleep? I spent many hours, late at night, wandering over the bridge up the A30 towards Camberley and the Military College just to keep him happy.

That house was our first proper house - a small end terrace with a cramped garage built in - Had to take a £5,730 mortgage out which seemed a horrendous amount of money to me at that time! The garage came in very handy, there was just enough room to open my old Anglia's driver door to get out if I got the N/S close enough to the wall. I doubt if one of today's bloated offerings would even go in!

 

[StevenRB45]

My oldest boy, when a baby, was poor to settle. We used to creep around the house, not fully closing doors etc to avoid any noise. Then my wife noticed that whenever she took him out in the pram to the shops (which involved pushing him along the pavement beside the A30 - we lived in Blackwater Hants at that time, near Camberley) he would very quickly fall asleep. The traffic noise from this main road, even back then in the very early '70's was incessant with many heavy lorries, we never did figure out why it made him fall asleep? I spent many hours, late at night, wandering over the bridge up the A30 towards Camberley and the Military College just to keep him happy.

The things you do!

He also sleeps in a pram but it's too cold at the moment for that also you don't get far from mine before you hit unlit roads.

In the summer it was lovely you'd go out just after dusk when the sky still had a bit light in it and cruise around until he was asleep. If anything it was nice because you weren't in a hurry and didn't have a destination so you could just enjoy the country roads.



I guess the noise of the tyres is what does it..but I'm very glad he isn't a light sleeper (you can get out the car and up the stairs easily). Also he's started falling asleep in his cot about 5 nights out of 7..which at this time of year is by far the preferred method of getting him to sleep.

I got the new winter tyres to minimise the risks but it's still cold, it's still generally the middle of nowhere, there's deer and badgers and all assorted fun of country roads at night in winter. So him sleeping without is much better.

 

[DaveMcT]

My mother used to wrap me up and put me in the pram under trees in the back garden. I'm tempted to say she then couldn't hear the yelling, but it really does work - I did it with my own. They slept like little logs and totally snug in the pram.

 

[portland_bill]

Soft tyre on the Fabia. Pooped the wheel off and found a screw in it. Just close enough to the edge to mean unrepairable. So off to ATS first thing, and £60 lighter.