The Maldovarium

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@missy

Get the magnifying glass (or use the accessibility settings on your computer). You won’t regret it.

[Miapatrick @miapatrick]

<p style=”text-align: left;”>Just submitted the final assignment for my OU degree after six years of study. Think a drink is in order?</p>

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

@miapatrick

Congratulations! I raise a glass to you!

<sound of glasses clinking across the internet>

[Mudlark @mudlark]

@miapatrick

Likewise, congratulations!  A drink is most definitely in order, so have one of your choice (virtually speaking) on me.

[Cath Annabel @cathannabel]

@miapatrick I literally just poured a glass of whiskey after getting back from a night at the theatre, so cheers & congratulations to you!

 

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@miapatrick

Congratulations! Have a virtual one one me!

😀

[Missy @missy]

@bluesqueakpip: Thank goodness for that. Loved the Threat List.

@pedant:  Shall do.

Missy

[Whisht @whisht]

@thane15 – massive apologies!

I forgot to say “well done!” for the essay!
Fantastic result.

And same goes for @miapatrick – outstanding!

;¬)

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@miapatrick

Drink! Drink! Drink! Drink! Drink! Drink! Drink! Drink!

[Anonymous @]

@miapatrick I also say congratulations and so does Mum!!!!

Thing is, how did  you do it? It takes me ages and hours to do something really well so I really mean it when I say congrats. You’ve totally earned a medal Miss MiaP.

@whisht

thanks.  🙂

*it was nothing*.

@pedant Oh, boy, I was reading that article from @cathannabel -awful stuff about Morrissey -what a hypocrite and  a loser. But his voice, oh wow, it’s good. But why does he chuck his shirt off in the middle of his concerts. The people in the audience were smelling it. ROFL.

@nick

that poem was awesome. I actually like rap (rap-ish) and Mum doesn’t. I’m going to learn it because it’s really wonderful.

Thane

 

 

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@thane15

But his voice,

You misspelled “whine”.

[Anonymous @]

@pedant

true true.

But it was Mum listening to it yesterday when I got home. She said: “no, seriously, come and listen to this. It’s not that bad” and I shook my head and left the room.

I think what amazes her and me is the sheer audacity of this guy. He’s standing there and the crowd in LA are singing and he says: “oh you know the words, bless you” and during the trumpet bit (which is the only good  bit) he looks like he’s crying, then he kisses the stage after which he throws off his shirt. I mean, some people can get away with tearing off their shirt but not him.

That wasn’t the bit that mum liked. She hadn’t seen it: when she saw it she said “oh vomit, and why’s he bawling?”

I did say to her “I told you so” but I did really like them when Marr sang more and I didn’t see Morrisey’s face. That’s awful to say but he does preen and on those interviews he was pretty rude about Americans and yet on stage appeared to adore them. I don’t think he’s trustworthy.

Thane

[Nick @nick]

@Thane15

I’m afraid poetry mostly passed me by. John Cooper Clarke is the poet I heard most frequently when I was a young adult (he’s still going, but you don’t see him very much these days). Rap – I’m partial to the odd song.

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

@nick, @thane15, @pedant, @cathannabel,

I, too, was taken with John Cooper Clarke way back when, and then I read an interview with him a year or so ago where he claimed that Nigel Farage was saying the most sensible things in British politics. Clarke, Morrissey–I suspect that there was something about the 1980s that, in retrospect, was fundamentally problematic.

“Counter culture” doesn’t necessarily translate into “admirable”.

[Nick @nick]

@blenkinsopthebrave

I find that rather disappointing, even though I don’t really care what he thinks. I worry more about the editorial line from the Daily Mail and Express, supported by the Sun to be honest. That said, I would wonder whether that it was just JCC taking the piss, being controversial for the sake of it, but you never can tell. Looking back, I suspect he always played a character of himself (rather like John Lydon).

 

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

@nick

It was here

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/apr/06/john-cooper-clarke-poetry-bard-salford

So which way would you vote?
It’s a tough call. I wouldn’t recommend any of them. I suppose if I had to I would vote Labour but only out of blind class hatred, nothing else. That’s what keeps these bastards coming back. To be honest, the only one whose language I even remotely understand is Nige [Farage]. Shoot me down in flames. Everyone else: they talk about nothing that seems to matter.

I suppose you could interpret that all sorts of ways. Personally, I still find it a bit troubling.

[Nick @nick]

@bleknsopthebrave

I agree, it is capable of being understood in different ways and is troubling, but I read some hesitance and distaste as well. I would write more, but this isnt a place for politics.

[Miapatrick @miapatrick]

@blenkinsopthebrave, @cathannabel, @mudlark, @whisit thank you- would have replied earilr but I premitvly took @pedants advice and indeed did ‘drink drink drink’ and now its a bank holiday weekend, when will it all end…
@bluesequeekpip thanks again for your help with the creative writing modules. You were a big factor in getting my overall scores high enough to give me a decent chance at a first. (but then I think back to my final EMA and shudder. Ah well, what will be will be.

@thane15, ‘taking hours and hours to do something well’ is the best way to do it. When I was young I seem to have had a fairly glib ability to throw something together and get a good mark. That’s not a brag, I became lazy and unmotivated when it came to any work I found difficult and was one reason I dropped out of university as quickly as I could. Now I don’t know how I ever did that. So I work more slowly, though mountains of notes and drafts. I go from a flush of excitement that I am about to write an amazing essay. My tutor will use it as a teaching guide. She’ll suggest I polish it for publication, I’ll get fast tracked into a Phd stream. I can’t emphasise enough how good the essay is going to be. Then I write it, and panic, and I hate it, and polish it, and rewrite it, and submit it in a mood of absolute despair. There is still a part of me that feels, if it’s difficult to write, it just isn’t going to be any good. So I’m still dealing with a terrible work ethic I built up at school. It sounds as though you have a much better grasp of just… working hard, putting in the effort. Which is fantastic and very promising for your future. The fact you are clever shows in your posts, the fact that you’re willing to put the work in bodes extremely well.

thanks to you and your mother and everyone for your kind words.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

So I didn’t bother watching the election interrogations last night (tbh, I’m a bit beyond caring), but the Twitter reaction seems to be that Theresa Mayhew was less than impressive.

Than, Laurie Penny – a left wing writer of rare wit and intelligence, and also a great big nerd  – posted this:

Don't you think she looks tired? #BattleForNumber10

— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) May 29, 2017

I would say about 1 in 3 of the replies got the reference.

[MissRori @missrori]

Only 1 in 3?  I’m surprised!  😀

[janetteB @janetteb]

Whew. I’m back. Has only been a day AFK but feels longer. Last night my beloved Laptop decided that enough was enough and quietly retired. After 7 1/2 years it deserved a medal. So I’m back with a shiny new laptop and I will be impressed if it lasts half as long, but just to show some level of faith in it I have named it Romana.

congratulations @miapatrick. Well done.

@pedant. Indeed she does..

Cheers

Janette

[Whisht @whisht]

@pedant – nice. Was PennyRed on Question Time a few months back?

Anyway, @arbutus you (via your son) asked if I was Wenger in or out.

Naughty naughty Arbutus!!

;¬)

So, as I mentioned only recently to another close friend of the show, I saw a parallel between the whole “Wenger/ Moffat out!” “you ruined my franchise!” brigade.
Lots of ‘fans’ with short memories and unrealistically high expectations (where’s Tom Baker / Liam Brady?)

FWIW I started supporting Arsenal when I was about 6 or 7 or 8 (really not sure) and have never been someone who can remember a goal or a particular win or recite a teamsheet. I can only date when I chose Arsenal as a team (two brothers goading me “who you gonna support??!!?!!???) and deliberately choosing a team in midtable (well, upper midtable).
When I opened my eyes and saw where the pin I’d placed had fallen (for the umpteenth time leaving the newspaper sports pages like cotton in places – but I didn’t even know where some of those Scottish clubs were) ‘Arsenal’ just felt right.

And weeks later watching on Match of the Day and realising Liam Brady, David O’Leary, Pat Jennings and Frank Stapleton were Irish (as are both my parents) it kinda made even more sense.

Anyway, I have a bit of perspective, remember the fallow years, and have two brothers who support Spurs and Man U.
Which itself gives one…. even more perspective!
;¬D

So – to your oh-so-innocent question: Wenger in or out ?

Well…. if the decision had been made months ago when it needed to have been then plans, structures etc would have been put in place to transition from a manager and structure that has been there for 20+ years.
As that hadn’t happened, then the only sensible course was to extend Wenger for 2 years, get new players in and extend those we want to stay (who all talk about joining because of Wenger) and now put in place the structure for transition.

Unfortunately this season was the season we didn’t get into the Champions League under his tenure. However, from what I’ve read, the deal years ago with Wenger and the Board was for Wenger to achieve to get in once every 3 seasons while we built and moved into a new stadium – a knowingly disruptive and cash-strapped period when we sold off our best players each year. Instead he overachieved, even when petro-cash came into football.
Instead of every 3 years he managed to get us into the Champions League (and its millions of ££s) every single year – until this season.

However – we’re not a poor club by any means. We have resources, we could easily have pumped resources in (debt) at certain points and certainly in the last 3-4 years we’ve been able to do that after 10 years of managing within our (very wealthy by 90% of other clubs) means.
Its just that we’re judged against the top 5-10% who mostly have huge debts.
There’s also a feeling now that at one time we were seen as changing the way clubs and footballers were managed – (rightly or wrongly) Wenger was seen as a thought-leader (his focus on their diet, his desire for them to stop being heavy drinkers etc). Now he’s seen as stubborn, old-fashioned, intransigent.

{sigh}

You were having fun and having a fun and gentle and good humoured poke.
I giggled and enjoyed the poke (I’m ticklish).
But I was already on my umpteenth glass of wine and who-knows-which 800% slowed down Radiohead song in my headphones. I’ve rambled. Massively. Apologies.

To answer a simple question:
I (now we’re at this point of the season without decisiveness and clarity earlier) want Wenger to stay (and he has now unsurprisingly been offered and accepted a 2 year extension) and to leave with more silverware next season with pride and his head held high and for fans to be singing his name with pride.

Pride? He is the manager of the only team that never had a loss during a season in the EPL (ie in the modern game). The Invincible Season. He has now won the FA Cup (a venerable competition in England) more times than any manager ever in its history. For the same club. If this number of wins is ever repeated by a manager I strongly doubt its ever for the same club.
And it takes guts to always front up to the cameras even if others (ie CEO etc) should have.

When he goes maybe Arsenal will get a Chibnall – and maybe that will prove to be better.

Who nose?

Apologies for rambling and if you tickle me like that again I’ll giggle stoopidly.

;¬)

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@whisht

Yes, she’s been of a few times and is always charming and articulate. I like her because she is not afraid to show the limits of her understanding. Also, when I disagree with her it is for interesting reasons.

I quite like the idea of Liam Brady as the new Doctor. At the end of his career, with West Ham, he scored one of the best goals ever seen at Upton Park. Right up there with Di Volleyio.

Way back in the day, a mate of mine who really understood football said: “The biggest problem with English football is that Frank Stapleton is Irish”.

[Whisht @whisht]

ha ha @pedant – I’d forgotten Brady came back to the Hammers.
Was it this goal you meant?

A sonic left foot…. its a thought.

oh, and he was called “Chippy”.

;¬)

[Arbutus @arbutus]

@whisht    Holy crap.  🙂

The question was certainly tongue-in-cheek; I hardly expected such a nuanced response! My son has taken to asking this question whenever he meets an Arsenal supporter (he isn’t one himself, so his interest is more academic, but he follows the sport pretty closely). But at this point, after having won the FA Cup, I’d have thought it would have become a tiny bit moot. However, sports fans can be rabid beasts. They are always screaming for heads! I think your comparison to DW “fandom” is an interesting one.

Anyway, congratulations! (Although, wine and Radiohead—a dangerous combination?)

[Missy @missy]

@janetteb: *chuckles* You too? I call my machine “Rex.”

@miapatrick: BRAVO!

Missy

 

[Anonymous @]

So, funny story. Thane’s local high school has some weird habits but this one takes the cake. Many schools deal with rabid absenteeism and his school started a policy involving a column of percentages next to colours.

97% and upwards -gold. You are brilliant. Your attendance is very good. Keep working to get to 100.

96% -green. You are doing well. Attendance is almost very good. Keep working harder to come to school.

95%  – yellow. You are doing well. Attendance is good. But don’t drop below this number.

94%  -orange. Attendance is problematic. Why aren’t you making at least 95?

93% up to 93.9% -red. DANGER. Attendance like this brings the whole school down.

At this point the school sends out a letter explaining the colours. There’s much coloured ink. It costs 70 cents to post it -and there’s a lot of letters because  3/4 of the school is hanging around the 75% rate (what colours are left? Black? A Jackson Pollock imitation?) and yet nothing else is EVER posted due to their “we are a ‘save the environment’ school” so assignments and reports are emailed, no-one informs you if the paid uniform order from 6 months ago reaches you, etc….

Point is, each child brings to school a box of tissues a day to deal with the fact that, yes, they’re horribly contagious and blow snot everywhere (& the teachers do too) but 1/2 a day per term is the ‘target’ for absenteeism. So, the environment is stuffed due to the tissues and everyone is spluttering and wandering off due to malaria-like fevers or keeling over and sleeping on desks during the fascinating Power- point on Romeo and Juliet.

How is this tolerable? 🙂  I am redacting names (bit pointless as I’ve told the internet 😉 ) and sending this off to the berky commercial stations which thrive on such stories. It so happens that the current principal is on Leave campaigning for a State Government seat! This should set the ticker rolling….

Somehow I’m reminded of the film Metropolis  (one of my favourites).

We need the Doctor to sonic some sense….

Kindest, Puro.

 

[Missy @missy]

@thane15: *scratches head and rolls eyes*

Isn’t it typical?

Thank you Puro.

Missy

[janetteB @janetteb]

@thane15 Hilarous but made me feel better. R.3 would definitely be down on 75%. He missed most of week two this term due to a cold and I was so concerned about him missing important lessons that I sent him back with a cough. We are having a really cold, dry winter, with overnight lows of around 2-3c which really isn’t helping. Maybe it is time our education system moved into the 21st century and explored some more flexible education options, like working from home via skype or the like when ill.

Metropolis is a great film. Really must put it on one night when the boys are around as I haven’t been able to persuade them to watch it yet and has been many years since I last watched it.

Cheers

Janette

 

[Whisht @whisht]

@arbutus – ha ha don’t worry, you asked in a good natured way and I was into my cups and went on and on and on.
But hopefully I was non-rabid!
;¬)

If your son is interested in football but not partisan (always a good thing), then a look at the economics, Board structures etc especially compared to other sectors, are possibly a nice seam of ‘interest’. (thoug lets face it the playing/ winning/ losing is always the main thing!).

The Guardian’s David Conn often uses that as his focus as does the blogger A Swiss Ramble (both cover teams beyond Arsenal – I just happen to have come across them after Arsenal’s travails.
I’m not ‘endorsing’ them if they happen to turn out to have certain views (I don’t ‘follow’ them) but when I’ve come across them its been interesting

Now, I’m off to the Music Thread!

;¬)

[Whisht @whisht]

btw – @thane15 or @janetteb – just how many days (roughly) do those percentages relate to?
And when do the kick in – ie if I’m off for a day in the first week of term my percentages are kinda screwed for a month!

But kinda curious that’s all.

(still – seems an outcome of the easily measurable over the non-easily measurable)

[Anonymous @]

@janetteb @missy @whisht

So, as I somehow missed in my explanation (apologies) it’s over the whole term: so term 1 in Year 8, Thane had no days off. Called up to assembly and given a little certificate: NO Days Off.

He looked at it, looked at the Deputy, shook his head and walked back to his seat.

Since then he’s been getting these letters…..They’re addressed to him, as well, which I find funny. He’d never open the post box anyway.

So they re-set the % every 10 weeks.

And add them all up again at the end of the year. Kids who haven’t missed a day get some wacky gift. How nuts.

[Missy @missy]

@thane15:  *shakes head this time as well as rolling eyes*

Missy

[wolfweed @wolfweed]

There’s another terroristy attack going on in London. Not good…..

[Anonymous @]

@wolfweed

Holy shit, indeed! Sketchy details as yet.

[wolfweed @wolfweed]

@thane15    I tried to follow what’s going on with the London attacks on twotter…

Had to stop, as it’s choked with bile & hatred…..

[Nick @nick]

@wolfweed

Whilst I can understand people calling for “action” from feelings of anger and rear,  there is a lot of crap being written. Katie Hopkins in particular stands out again for the utter bollocks she writes.

[janetteB @janetteb]

That this is happening in the run up to an election suggests a political motive to me. They want Brexit I suspect, divide and conquer, They want to see Europe broken because despite its many faults it is still a bastion of humanist values.

so sad. Sad sad world right now.

Janette

[Anonymous @]

@janetteb @nick @wolfweed

Agreed: Bile and hatred which is the point of the attackers ‘achievement’.

Here, though, ordinary ozzies and much loved ABC reporters in London, Steve Cannane and Lisa Millar are avoiding that crap -mind you, I avoid twatter, as it were.

I can’t do anything for any of you over there -except ‘virtually’ But I’m wide awake, finger on the button, so PM me if you want to chat -better that than hitting the bottle, maybe. Maybe a soothing chamomile chat?

Puro

 

[Missy @missy]

I haven’t watched any of the atrocity and I don’t want to. My OH told me about it this morning and I have steadfastly avoided it. This doesn’t mean that I don’t care, I do, too much and the anger I feel is almost overwhelming.

Although we have lived here in OZ for decades, London is the city in which I was born and I still love it. Being the kind of people you are on this friendly forum, I know that you will understand this. Every time I hear Big Ben chime, the tears begin, can’t help it.

Sentimental I’m not, there is simply something about that wonderful sound that gets to me. No wonder I sink myself in Doctor Who, if only there were such a person. Wouldn’t that be great?

Missy

 

[janetteB @janetteb]

@missy there is something magical about London. I hated it while I lived there and had to get out but I love it too and feels more “home” to me than any other city I have lived in. When the plane banks and you get that view of the snaking Thames, the dome of St Paul’s the Eye and the Tower my heart races with joy. It has been home to so many remarkable people from all over this crazy planet of ours and hopefully always will be. (I have just finished editing a book I wrote about two Aussie girls living in London and backpacking about, fictional but drawing on personal experience.)

Cheers

Janette

[Nick @nick]

@janetteb

All of ISIS/Al Qaeda (and before them PLO and there more extreme brothers) attacks are political in intent (as well as being at best indirectly related to their view of Islam). The observation (at least 10 years ago) that each cycle of violence gets more extreme in nature remains true. The fact that many (too many ?) politicians focus on Islam or their lack of Islam, misses the point. Yes ISIS wants to create a (global) Caliphate based on a particular fundamentalist (I’m not sure that’s really the right word) version of Islam, but there narrative towards the west is one of a victimised Islam, defenceless, preyed on by western imperialism, crusaderism.

With each attack in the west, their aim is to provoke a reaction (an over-reaction) which supports and builds on their narrative, Their barbarity is meant to provoke that over-reaction. Cloaking their political aim in Islamism is a cover. They would love a religious war as it would demonstrate the truth of their opinion, even if all of the current members died in the process.

The worst thing in my opinion, is that while our governmental institutions are fully aware, too many of our politicians are using them to further their own agenda. Whatever any politician says, it is impossible to deter or stop an individual getting into a car with knife and killing people. Likewise it is impossible to stop one individual radicalising themselves to act or talk to other like minded individuals (although that can be made much more difficult if very significant sums of money were spent).

 

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

Just to say, if you were in any way capable of holding it together while Ariana Grande completely lost it while singing Over The Rainbow then I don’t think I can ever trust you.

 

[Missy @missy]

@pedant:

Haven’t heard this.

@janetteb:

I never hated London, my only mistake was to take all it had to offer for granted. All that history – “oh well, it will still be there tomorrow.”  Trouble was, we weren’t. We left on a whim, but that doesn’t mean we have been unhappy here.

Missy

 

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

Just heard the Peter Wallis, the voice of Wallace, from Wallace and Gromit, and, of course, Cleggy, in Last of the Summer Wine, has died.

On the scale of how much happiness a person can bring to people, it is hard to match his contribution.

RIP.

[janetteB @janetteb]

@blenkinsopthebrave Yes was very sad when I saw that this morning. Loved Wallace and Gromit so much. It was our eldest son’s favourite TV show when he was very young. His favourite toy was a soft toy Wallace closely followed by Gromit. Somewhere in their soft toy collection there is also a Shaun the Sheep and though we never found Penguin there are several substitute soft toy penguins about. (Youngest is 16 but none of the soft toys have been disposed of)

Might have to re watch A Grand Day Out tonight in his honour.

@missy when you live in a place you rarely get to see what it has to offer. When I lived and worked in London there was never time to play the tourist so it wasn’t until I returned with my family that I finally got to visit the Tower and the British Museum but still so much more that I haven’t seen. Always always need to go back.

cheers

Janette

[Missy @missy]

Very sad news. Thank you for posting @blenkinsopthebrave.

[Missy @missy]

@janetteb:

I never visited the British Museum – always meant to, *sigh* and I only went to the Tower one week before we came here! *shakes head* Mind you, I did go to many castles, Stately Homes and each point of the compass on the UK. I believe that if you spent a year exploring every nook and cranny in just London alone, you still wouldn’t see all of it.

Missy

 

[Nick @nick]

On UK election day you can argue this article is political. It is, but I think its well worth reading. I’m a Northerner at heart (although I’ve lived in the SE for longer), but I think that some of the descriptions here from an American journalist traveling in Yorkshire (apparently writing for Guardian America) are realistic and accurate representation of a large element of the UK. What a mess we are in.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/07/from-rust-belt-to-mill-towns-a-tale-of-two-voter-revolts-thomas-frank-us-and-uk-elections

 

[JimTheFish @jimthefish Time Lord]

In other news, this General Election night looks as if it’s going to be a belter….

[Author]

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