New 'left-wing' think tank....

[DaveCinzano]

Hilary's house is utterly filthy - I don't think that's a Mexican trait either.

Maybe her domestics are Mexican

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

And what about the time she instructed a load of admin workers to tippex out a single word in each of 10,000 copies of that reform book?!

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

4 little stools though! *snigger*

 

[articul8]

4 little stools though! *snigger*

that's the IWCA leadership you're talking about

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

that's the IWCA leadership you're talking about

I bet their homes are all clean and tidy though

 

[articul8]

I bet their homes are all clean and tidy though

Yes, like off that film where Julia Roberts' husband is proper OCD.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

don't know it

 

[articul8]

can't remember what it's called now - but he (Gere?) had labels vertically aligned

 

[love detective]

But to say this was a conspiracy is a bit chippy to be honest.

This is the point though, if it had been a conspiracy it wouldn't have been as bad, as that at least indicates a conscious effort to behave in a certain way for a particular reason or objective

But the point being made by the use of this example was the default & unthinking way in which this arrogance, attitude & behaviour oozes out of a certain type of privileged lefty who pack the boards & advisory panels of the type of left wing think tank's referred to in the OP of this thread. This is the default way of interacting with others who they see as not as 'important' as them. You only get treated different to this if you are 'one of them'.

And your responses to this seek to explain this very thing away by saying 'it's just what she/they are like' - but this is exactly the point being made!

 

[love detective]

Are you sure she wasn't taking a note of the discussion on her laptop, or looking at the IWCA website - she has a habit of "multitasking" but it's hard to see whether that's an excuse for not concentrating?

She wasn't taking a note of the discussion as she wasn't even listening to the discussion at first. She wasn't looking at the IWCA website because she actually told us that she was checking her emails while we were talking

Anyway, clearly a bad impression was created. I daren't ask what you thought about my demeanour, but you didn't decline an interview on BTF stuff so can't have been too catastrophic.

I've got no problem with you, i don't agree with your politics/tactics/approach but have no problem with you as a person or the way you behave towards other people

(although to be fair you were always going to come out first when the other two were such cocks - maybe this is why you hang out with such folk so you come across as not that bad in comparison!)

 

[DaveCinzano]

can't remember what it's called now - but he (Gere?) had labels vertically aligned

FFS it's Sleeping With The Enemy and it's Patrick Bergin, not Richard Gere.

 

[DaveCinzano]

(although to be fair you were always going to come out first when the other two were such cocks - maybe this is why you hang out with such folk so you come across as not that bad in comparison!)

The third member of the triumvirate sounds like a hoot:

A Coney Island of the Mind by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Ferlinghetti's San Francisco bookshop, City Lights, is my favourite bookshop in the world...

Live Working, Die Fighting by Paul Mason
Paul Mason really brings to life the history of workers' struggle as he examines different episodes of it...

The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord
Many theoretical tracts lose relevance as history overtakes their insights, but in many ways this one seems more relevant today than when it was written in the 60s...

PAGING LAURA

 

[ViolentPanda]

The general rule is that the person who arrives latest is the one who thinks they are the most important. If you ever do a "media" meeting, check it out, in my experience it was an infallible guide to the status of the participants.

The self-perceived status of the participants, anyway.

 

[ViolentPanda]

this is true, but it's not a moral failing

Then why phrase it as one?

 

[ViolentPanda]

It's the stools that do it (snigger). I'm not getting into the timekeeping gig, but there's no excuse for making people sit on kiddie chairs - That is just a power trip.

A fairly standard one too, that most management I've ever met try to use. It's a power trip best dispelled with "can't sit, I've got a bad back. I'll stand if you don't mind, boss".

 

[ViolentPanda]

Yes, like off that film where Julia Roberts' husband is proper OCD.

He's not OCD, he's a control freak. The personality disorder that goes with the former is nothing like the personality disorder that goes with the latter.

 

[ViolentPanda]

FFS it's Sleeping With The Enemy and it's Patrick Bergin, not Richard Gere.

Gere could never have done that role. Every time he tries to play a bad character, the character comes across as being petulant rather than menacing.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

The general rule is that the person who arrives latest is the one who thinks they are the most important. If you ever do a "media" meeting, check it out, in my experience it was an infallible guide to the status of the participants.

Bonus points for doing this, and then apologising for being late and saying you can't stay long because you have another meeting to go to.

Used by: David Lammy, Penny Thompson (Chief Exec of Hackney Council).

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Gere could never have done that role. Every time he tries to play a bad character, the character comes across as being petulant rather than menacing.

I thought he was menacing in Internal Affairs...but perhaps I'm too easily menaced.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[DaveCinzano]

Gere could never have done that role. Every time he tries to play a bad character, the character comes across as being petulant rather than menacing.

He's rather good in Internal Affairs.

 

[articul8]

He's not OCD, he's a control freak. The personality disorder that goes with the former is nothing like the personality disorder that goes with the latter.

you can't be a control freak with OCD?

 

[DaveCinzano]

DAMN YOU, MACNEICE, DAMN YOU STRAIGHT TO HELL

 

[Louis MacNeice]

A fairly standard one too, that most management I've ever met try to use. It's a power trip best dispelled with "can't sit, I've got a bad back. I'll stand if you don't mind, boss".

The other variant on this (and works to disrupt proceedings to the point of impossibility) is to conduct business from flat on your back on the floor. I saw this done once in a joint CPSA, Society, CSU meeting with management which left the latter so flustered they (the prone union rep was behind a desk and therefore pretty much invisible to them) adjourned the whole thing (which was the desired TU side outcome).

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[ViolentPanda]

I thought he was menacing in Internal Affairs...but perhaps I'm too easily menaced.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

He seemed menacing because he was playing opposite Cheesy McGarcia. A tennis ball looks menacing opposite Andy Garcia!

 

[ViolentPanda]

you can't be a control freak with OCD?

I'm sure you can.
That said, Bergin's character wasn't OCD.

 

[chilango]

The other variant on this (and works to disrupt proceedings to the point of impossibility) is to conduct business from flat on your back on the floor. I saw this done once in a joint CPSA, Society, CSU meeting with management which left the latter so flustered they (the prone union rep was behind a desk and therefore pretty much invisible to them) adjourned the whole thing (which was the desired TU side outcome).

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

Most Earth First! Meetings were conducted from the prone position.

 

[redsquirrel]

The other variant on this (and works to disrupt proceedings to the point of impossibility) is to conduct business from flat on your back on the floor. I saw this done once in a joint CPSA, Society, CSU meeting with management which left the latter so flustered they (the prone union rep was behind a desk and therefore pretty much invisible to them) adjourned the whole thing (which was the desired TU side outcome).

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

I'll have to try that tactic next time we have a meeting with management. Did the rep give a reason why they were lying on the floor or did they just let management wonder?

 

[DaveCinzano]

I'm sure you can.
That said, Bergin's character wasn't OCD.

OCPD then, wiki-warrior

 

[ViolentPanda]

OCPD then, wiki-warrior

Not wiki, psychology texts.

 

[articul8]

went to its Westminster launch today. Depressingly little sign of any "thinking" - a bit of "inequality is bad, poverty is bad" stuff but nothing much to say about it other than warmed over social democratic stuff about taxation and the welfare state. Frances O'Grady (who is of course senior bureaucrat in chief) at least made reference of the need to talk about economic democracy - but fear she meant something like Will Hutton's stakeholder stuff.

The really hard stuff - tackling the unaccountable power of the bond markets and finance capital more generally, the total erosion of even formal liberal democratic sovereignty across Europe, actually slamming the breaks on catastrophic climate change - nothing. Not even the merest hint of criticism of One Nation politics and the idea that the interests of capital and labour can be reconciled.

And of course no actually attempt to involve and empower w/c people themselves - just do-gooders trying their best form on high. Aaaargh!