Myth no.2 "Remainers don't want to understand us"

Leavers just need to be loved. Just like everybody else does.

You hear this, time and again.

After conveniently brushing facile slogans under the carpet, one by one, whether it's the 350m for the NHS, 80m Turks at your door, "innovative jam", or "the easiest negotiation in history", our poor Leavers are now desperately clutching at the straw that says they've been "misunderstood". "To many on the liberal Left, Brexit is to be opposed, not understood", is the latest one to widely circulate.

Rich, eh? From a political camp who liquidates any dissent with automatically-generated lines ranging from EUSSR to Remoaners, Metropolitan Elite, liberal snowflakes, dwellers of Islington, George Soros and the reptilians, that really is rich. Never trying to understand your average Leave voter. How awful. How insensitive. Like a 14 year old grounded in his bedroom, feeling lonely, sobbing that his folks don't get him. Pathetic.

With no hint of irony, the same camp that treats any mild disagreement with  ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE headlines, Gina Miller Facebook hate groups, and never ending cries of "CRUSH THE SABOTEURS", "betrayal" and "mutineers" are seriously begging for some understanding.

As if they routinely go out of their way the Brexiteers, Daily Mail in tow, to even vaguely acknowledge, let alone respect, the staggering 75% of the 18-24 age group who voted Remain (note: the majority is crystal clear across all social classes, from the poshest to the most destitute), the millions who are genuinely concerned about their right to stay, family, free travel,  trade, policing, Erasmus, work and retirement on the Continent, you name it.

As if the winning camp (cos this is the winning camp we're talking about, and not the other way round) were at pains to reach out and woo the two regions of the UK which voted neatly Remain. Easier to play the "misunderstood" sulky teenager while calling other "snowflakes".

Coming next: Piers Morgan wails that he can't get a word in edgeways.

See also: Myth no.1: The White Working Class and Brexit

The White Working Class myth

Back from the dead.

And so here we are. Back again. Years after the last post.
Like them films when people re-awake from a coma after years, and have to gently get re-used to how the world has changed, and have to learn to take it in a little at a time or else shock may get the better of them.

In line with the uselessness that punctuated the short history of this orange blog, we learnt that we're rejoining the fray right in the era when blogging is at its deaddest. Dead and buried for years.

As obsolete as minidiscs, 90s curtains, meme-free interaction, or warship in the Baltic. As distant a memory as the pre-Twitter era of slightly longer attention spans. As remote as the days, and it wasn't that long ago, mind, when frothing at the mouth hysterically was frowned upon. It was considered weird. Confined to the unhinged fringes, whether online or in the pub. Stuff for the crazed, socially inadequate extremists with sweaty palms and anger management issues who'd rather crack one off over an Alex Jones rant than go out. Certainly not for Presidents, senior politicians, narcissistic pop icons from the 80s or some puffer fish.

And so. What happened was that this blog could no longer bear the thought of hearing yet more pap being spouted out unchallenged. It's everywhere. And each post will be about debunking bullshit. A hopeless task no doubt, when The Death of Reason and shouting the loudest (without ever going against, ever, those unbreachable Facebook Community Standards) have become de rigueur (couldn't help a bit of Metropolitan elitism there, you see).

And so. Part 1. Now. Quickly.
"The White Working Class" won Brexit. And all those who voted Remain are metropolitan-liberal-elitists-from-leafy-middle-class-neighbourghoods (as well as snowflakes, virtue signallers and email me if I forgot any of the usual formulas). That's what we hear day in day out. With 3/4 of the World's population regurgitating what they overhear from tabloids and valiant men of the people such as Farage, Rees Mogg, Johnson, Redwood, Tommy Robinson and the rest.

And so I ask thee. These following places where Remain mopped the floor with Leave, with majorities north of 60% or even 75% (!). You honestly still wanna gum about that it's all "Metropolitan Elites"=remain and "white working class"= leave?
Glasgow North. Liverpool Riverside. Streatham. Tottenham. Lewisham. Birmingham Ladywood. Bethnal Green and Bow. Liverpool Wavertree. Manchester. Etc. "Metropolitan Elites"? Are we fucking joking?

And tell me, guzzler of online crap. What about these Leave-dominated constituencies instead? Do you actually believe that they're home to the angry, deprived and, of course, "white" working class" instead? St Ives, Solihull, Sutton Coldfield, Yeovil, Chipping Barnet, Jacob Rees Mogg-land, etc?

Here. Done. Another lot as soon as I can be arsed.

The birth of a new ruler...

...and how English people (and the media) are celebrating it.

Thatcher's homophobia: the forgotten legacy

Caught between rising homophobic violence and tackling discrimination, Thatcher made it very clear where she stood.

In the wake of former PM Margaret Thatcher's death, a military-scale process of sanctification has been shoved down the British public's gullet.

Watch the way Newsnight covered her legacy on the day she popped her clogs, or how Ken Clarke and her biographer Charles Moore were slobbering all over her name for most of the last episode of BBC Question Time, and you'll start believing that figures such as Mother Teresa and Florence Nightingale were actually a pair of hoodlums compared to the Iron Lady.

And yet, in the flurry of hagiographies and tributes to this "extraordinary woman", her long list of heinous political acts seems to have been ENTIRELY forgotten. In particular, the way her rampant homophobia became integral to British law.

Which, you will understand, hardly sits at ease with the relentless campaign to portray her as Holy. The papers may tell you that she was stubborn or, at a push, that "some people saw her as fairly divisive", but that Thatcher was behind Britain’s first new anti-gay law since 1885 is so utterly embarrassing that they just won't mention it.

And before your average Tory pops up to tell you that no, she actually stood for LGBT rights, just like they're unashamedly passing as "fighting apartheid" the fact that she and her party dubbed Nelson Mandela a "terrorist" for the whole of her political career, here's a number of things that Maggie did to further institutionalise homophobia in Britain.

Like human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell writes, "At the Conservative party conference in 1987 Mrs Thatcher mocked people who defended the right to be gay, insinuating that there was no such right. During her rule, arrests and convictions for consenting same-sex behaviour rocketed, as did queer bashing violence and murders. This backlash coincided with her successive “family values” and “Victorian values” campaigns, which urged a return to traditional morality and family life".  

And, in fact, this is what she publicly said:

"Too often, our children don’t get the education they need—the education they deserve…
Children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay…
All of those children are being cheated of a sound start in life—yes, cheated".

Which is how, aided by a hysterical tabloid campaign about "the loonie left" and "gay lobbies" along with talks of AIDS as "the gay plague" and the barefaced lie that "GAY PORN BOOKS [were being] READ IN SCHOOLS", in 1988 the Thatcher government steamrollered in the homophobic Section 28.

The Act, which remained part of the statute book until Labour scrapped it in 2003, was as controversial and ambiguous as it was soaked in hate and deep prejudice.

In one fell swoop, Section 28 crucially advocated censorship - preventing local authorities and schools from discussing ("promoting", the hideous wording was) homosexuality or engaging in anti-bullying activities, sneered at "pretended family relationships", and added insult to injury by linking homosexuality to "the spread of disease".

It is almost impossible to believe that such an ignorant piece of legislation was part of the British legislative framework and that half the Tory party was still defending it tooth and nail as recently as 2003.

Nevertheless, caught between rising homophobic violence and intolerance, and the calls in favour of tackling discrimination and promoting acceptance, Thatcher made it very clear where she stood.

No coincidence that, shortly after Section 28 became law, the offices of a gay newspaper, Capital Gay, were burnt down and lesbian and gay helplines reported a threefold increase in "queer bashing".

Which is why, when the current hysteria over Maggie's beatification subsides a little, hopefully the world will manage to remember how such a detestably homophobic piece of legislation was entirely in line with Thatcher and her character. Now hopefully buried forever.

Vile? Take a look in the mirror

How right-wingers excel at preying on the dead.

I don't recall the Daily Fail, George Osborne, or David Cameron trying to score pathetic political points back in 2008 - when millionaire Christopher Foster slaughtered his family.

No lectures or questions about society and lifestyles back then. And yet, the patterns were eerily similar to Mick Philpott's crime. That was an "individual tragedy". This one's a "vile product of Welfare UK".

Hagley Road to Australia

From Sydney with love...

This is a picture of my new area.

It's in the Sydney district of Pyrmont (super recommended if you happen to be Down Under), and it explains why things haven't been so active on the blog in recent weeks.

So, apologies to whoever may still read this, but I've moved here for good and have been enjoying the fantastic Sydney climate.

Just imagine, it's winter time here and we've been having twenty degrees and sun. The pubs and nightlife are amazing and what they say about the Ozzies being friendly and welcoming is absolutely true!

We'll be posting again soon, once work and my new Ozzie life are all settled.

The Change-Up

Gooey.

Fans of the recent strand of US comedies including the excellent Horrible Bosses and The Hangover would be mistaken to think that The Change-Up was anywhere near the same league.

Sure, it features some familiar faces and good acting. From the ever-reliable and super versatile Ryan Reynolds (Buried, The Amityville Horror), to tried-and-tested Jason Bateman (Horrible Bosses, Paul, Juno) and Leslie Mann (The 40-Year-Old-Virgin, Knocked Up), the cast is certainly at hand to deliver a laugh or two. Which in fact they do, especially in the promising first half.

The problem, however, is in the script. Past the first hour, the film takes an unnecessary swerve towards a syrupy morass that piles up by the minute and starts oozing more off cheese than a chunk of Stilton left to seep under the Arizona sun.

It's as if ideas had run out and the only option left was to drown the whole thing into an unwitting caricature of the worst cinematic fluff that ever came out of Hollywood.

Seriously, it becomes absolutely insufferable. Even when you think that enough violins have been unleashed out of their case and that, surely, producers and directors would now reinject some last-minute grit and comedy-value into the plot, more soppy scenes come to hit you in the face, wetter than an aqueous flannel.

Verdict? Good if you tap on the button that says STOP about an hour into it. Unwatchable after that.

Brick shithouse

Damn. I did it. Like a plonker. After days of stumbling into the name "Samantha Brick" no matter which website I'd browse, I finally clicked on the link to her original Mail article, thus adding a precious +1 to the attention-seeking lady with a personality disorder and, even worse, the Fail site. Shame on me.