Alex Callinicos/SWP vs Laurie Penny/New Statesman Facebook handbags

[rekil]

Renowned fashbasher billy b.

 

[butchersapron]

This machine votes lib-dem

 

[where to]

I think the guy from Ocean Colour Scene wrote it on his guitar too.....

 

[Greebo]

Renowned fashbasher billy b.

It seems a bit odd to me that somebody who plays a guitar for at least part of their living feels the need to sign the thing.

 

[rekil]

It seems a bit odd to me that somebody who plays a guitar for at least part of their living feels the need to sign the thing.

That's our Billy. Always a bit odd, always the same.

 

[Greebo]

That's our Billy. Always a bit odd, always the same.

Yes, but there's odd and there's really odd. I don't even play my guitar much but I'd be able to pick it out of similar ones. Signing your own guitar is on a par with tattooing your name on your baby's forehead, you just don't do it.

 

[Tom A]

This machine votes lib-dem

And subsequently regretted doing so. As did I.

 

[rekil]

Yes, but there's odd and there's really odd. I don't even play my guitar much but I'd be able to pick it out of similar ones. Signing your own guitar is on a par with tattooing your name on your baby's forehead, you just don't do it.

Maybe he was having a raffle?

 

[Greebo]

Maybe he was having a raffle?

No need to sign the front, he could have signed the back.

 

[rekil]

No need to sign the front, he could have signed the back.

And depreciate its raffleability? You mad?

 

[SpineyNorman]

And subsequently regretted doing so. As did I.

I'm assuming you didn't also write a book about how we are a classless society and the only way forward for the UK left was to embrace patriotism though did you?

 

[Tom A]

I'm assuming you didn't also write a book about how we are a classless society and the only way forward for the UK left was to embrace patriotism though did you?

No. However I still admire BB and like his music, even if I don't 100% agree with all of his political beliefs today.

 

[DrRingDing]

Renowned fashbasher billy b.

What's 'tascists' a new type of posh biscuit?

 

[Greebo]

What's 'tascists' a new type of posh biscuit?

People who discriminate against moustaches?

 

[DrRingDing]

 

[Sue]

It's a bıt of a stupıd, pathetıc and self-aggrandızıng slogan though ınnıt.

If Laurıe Penny had wrıtten ıt on her keyboard everyone would be mockıng her mercılessly.

In fact I bet andysays has got ıt wrıtten on hıs keyboard. Or hıs forehead.

You'd need to take that up with Woody Guthrie...

 

[andysays]

It's a bıt of a stupıd, pathetıc and self-aggrandızıng slogan though ınnıt.

If Laurıe Penny had wrıtten ıt on her keyboard everyone would be mockıng her mercılessly.

In fact I bet andysays has got ıt wrıtten on hıs keyboard. Or hıs forehead.

To write it on your guitar in the early 1940's when Woody Guthrie did requires more of an act of imagination then most people would be capable of (even if it was inspired by inscriptions painted on the sides of airplanes used in the Spanish Civil War).

If Laurie Penny did have it written on her keyboard today (I have no idea on this either way) she would deserve to be mocked mercilessly.

And unfortunately, phil, you lose your bet. I don't have it written on my keyboard, my guitar or my forehead, but it is etched metaphorically on my heart, just above the line which reads

Boredom is Always Counter-Revolutionary​

and below

Only Anarchists are Pretty​

 

[Greebo]

You'd need to take that up with Woody Guthrie...

Seeing as that would involve conversing with the dead (or at least appearing to do so), somehow I don't think Dwyer would be up for that.

 

[Sue]

Seeing as that would involve conversing with the dead (or at least appearing to do so), somehow I don't think Dwyer would be up for that.

Oh I don't know, he strikes me as a man of unusual talents.

 

[Greebo]

Oh I don't know, he strikes me as a man of unusual talents.

I didn't say that Dwyer couldn't, I said he wouldn't. Shall we get back to the thread's subject? He's really not worth argueing about.

 

[DaveCinzano]

I think the guy from Ocean Colour Scene wrote it on his guitar too.....

More like his dad wrote 'This machine has for three years built up an operational legend of having killed fascists whilst scrupulously collating information on other stringed instruments which have claimed to have been involved in fascist-killing'.

 

[Bakunin]

Expecting some chicanery here. And how about publishing the hate mail.

You're trying to oppress her with demands for actual evidence?

Sounds more like she's warming up to start dismissing any and all criticism, regardless of fairness and accuracy, before it's even been voiced, to me.

 

[Greebo]

And depreciate its raffleability? You mad?

Or temporarily remove the strings, sign the label inside the guitar body (via the sound hole) refasten the strings, job done: One visible signature without defacement.

 

[newbie]

Surely the way to solve the problem is to demand another toilet for men - not to simply change the label on an existing toilet how will that help anybody of whatever gender?

I'm catching up the last fortnight or so of meanderings of this thread, so this is out of sequence,

Do any of the intellectually/educationally privileged here know if there's been any contemporary examination of the politics of the toilet, taking the intersections into account? Preferably without lavatory 'humour'.

There's obvious scope for looking at the class and gender dimensions of provision, and the expectations contained in language (lavatory/loo/bog) and at toilets for those with disabilities. And then there's the (imo utterly disgusting and uncivilised) attrition of the formerly widespread public toilet, now judged for their profit/loss rather than as a public service and largely outsourced to 'for customer only' pubs and cafes. Provision of public drinking water comes into that too- few parks seem to have old fashioned drinking fountains these days. And then there's the politics of what gets scrawled on the walls. I've never previously really thought about toilet arrangements for transgendered people, but there's clearly a (political) issue there.

Beyond that, in this country there's an almost universal concept of what a toilet is and should be. Around the world plenty of cultures prefer to squat rather than sit, aim at the floor not the wall, use a bidet in preference to paper and (for all I know) probably much else besides. Are universities and other places where there are high numbers of (for want of a better word) foreigners, or of locals with different cultural expectations, making any efforts to cater for their preferences? If not, why not?

There must be some carbon/energy/sewage farm efficiency implications of paper-v-water, and maybe health stats relating to squatting-v-sitting.

Has anyone published on the politics of all this?

 

[Belushi]

Are universities and other places where there are high numbers of (for want of a better word) foreigners, or of locals with different cultural expectations, making any efforts to cater for their preferences? If not, why not?

At the Uni I used to work at we had signs in all the toilets asking students not to squat on the seats.

 

[JimW]

Squatter's rights!

 

[seventh bullet]

And then there's the (imo utterly disgusting and uncivilised) attrition of the formerly widespread public toilet, now judged for their profit/loss rather than as a public service and largely outsourced to 'for customer only' pubs and cafes. Provision of public drinking water comes into that too- few parks seem to have old fashioned drinking fountains these days. And then there's the politics of what gets scrawled on the walls.

(((Cottagers)))

 

[JHE]

At the Uni I used to work at we had signs in all the toilets asking students not to squat on the seats.

At a language school where I worked the notices had helpful diagrams to encourage sitting and discourage squatting.

 

[JimW]

Remember looking at various designs for non-water-using hygenic toilets when I worked for that rural development org. Nightsoil was still an essential part of the fertiliser load used in the fields where we worked, but in the system then current where toilet combined with pig pen would only get a year's grace before being applied, whereas advice is it needs two years before any dangerous pathogens etc are dead. So there were these sorts where you dig two pits and have a shed thing that can be shifted from one to the other as you rotate usage - shitting into one, digging out t'other and muck-spreading it. this will be universal post communism, even in tower blocks

 

[Bakunin]

And then there's the politics of what gets scrawled on the walls.

'For a good time, call the less genuine members of the Westboro Baptist Church. Or possibly one of many, many leading British far-right politico's.'