This Random Thread

[Mexicola]

Just wanted to post here that after years on this forum, i will be entering another life stage. My wife is pregnant and our first kid is due july. I guess I have some sobering up to do before then lol!

Congratulations! Kiss goodbye to spare time, sleep and disposable income. It's totally amazing.

[A_Northern_Soul]

Just wanted to post here that after years on this forum, i will be entering another life stage. My wife is pregnant and our first kid is due july. I guess I have some sobering up to do before then lol!

Amazing news; congratulations!

Welcome to the club.

[portiss]

Thanks guys. Looking forward to it, but also shitting myself haha!

[A_Northern_Soul]

Remember a few months ago when everyone was all “can’t wait for 2020 to be over! Things will be better next year!”?

Hahahahahahhahaha! Oh fucking hell..... *cries*

[Mexicola]

Remember a few months ago when everyone was all “can’t wait for 2020 to be over! Things will be better next year!”?

Hahahahahahhahaha! Oh fucking hell..... *cries*

2008.
2009.
2010.
2011.
2012.
2013.
2014.
2015.
2016.
2017?
2018..
2019.
2020.
2021 (hold my coat)
Rinse and repeat.

[bungler666]

We just can't be content can we...

We need to go much further back, and faster!

[mechanismj]

Hey, remember the 80's?

[A_Northern_Soul]

2008. Quite good I think?
2009. Not sure anything happened in 2009
2010. Pretty good...
2011. mainly good but exhausting
2012. up and down
2013. actually pretty good
2014. Stressful and exhausting
2015. Passable.
2016. Awful
2017 Good until the end of the year, then awful
2018 Briefly awful then largely good?
2019. A year of two halves - one good, one terrible.
2020. Oh Christ...
2021 ...Oh Jesus Christ, NO!

[Josh]

I know Boris Johnson has been around for quite awhile now, but I've never read or heard an explanation for his hair. Is there an explanation and if so, what is it?

[Mexicola]

Inbreeding?

[bungler666]

When will they announce the BREXIT All Grain Cereal (c)? Best served with the tears of small children?

[Twoist]

I know Boris Johnson has been around for quite awhile now, but I've never read or heard an explanation for his hair. Is there an explanation and if so, what is it?

It's not hair. It's a community of sentient alien beings, each one more intelligent than the human being they sit atop.

[Mexicola]

Best description I ever heard for Mr Johnson was from Sue Perkins, who called him a 'Half-fucked haystack'.

Personally, I felt sorry for honest hard-working haystacks everywhere.

[Josh]

I'm sure his hair has been discussed to death in the UK the same way the former U.S. president's hair was, but Johnson was on 'Murican TV recently and I could not stop looking at it and wondering what the hell was going on. I can't tell if he intentionally wants it like that or if he just doesn't give a fuck. It seems intentional, but what message is he trying to send with a hair style like that?

[fujee]

Johnson's buffoon-like appearance helps him appeal to the 'every man' and diverts serious political scrutiny. It's the same reason why Dominic Cummings, his former advisor, walks around looking like a student most of the time. The UK's mostly right-leaning press report on it and the public laps it up, while virtually no attention is given to what's actually going on in government.

Also, scruffy posh people are not uncommon in the middle- and upper-middle classes. It's almost a cliché here in the UK.

[jcnporter]

A number of people in the media have reported witnessing Johnson deliberately mess up his hair before going on camera, he's smart enough to know that his constructed persona makes him 'relatable' and that the compliant UK press lap it up and amplify it.
I've even read someone saying that, by accident, they happened to watch Johnson deliver the same speech twice to separate audiences. Each time, the hair was the same, the speech was word-for-word the same, including the bumbling pauses, unfinished phrases and exclamations, all in exactly the same places. A complete performance, in other words.

[Mexicola]

Correct. There was an excellent piece a year or two back saying exactly this. The gaffs, the hair, it's all a performance honed over years of bluffing and grifting his way through position after position. He is the living embodiment of everything wrong with England's (and I do mean England's) obsession with class and entitlement. Said it before, I'll say it again - England's dreaming.

[Josh]

Thanks for clearing that up. What a world.

[SamuraiDrifter]

A number of people in the media have reported witnessing Johnson deliberately mess up his hair before going on camera, he's smart enough to know that his constructed persona makes him 'relatable' and that the compliant UK press lap it up and amplify it.
I've even read someone saying that, by accident, they happened to watch Johnson deliver the same speech twice to separate audiences. Each time, the hair was the same, the speech was word-for-word the same, including the bumbling pauses, unfinished phrases and exclamations, all in exactly the same places. A complete performance, in other words.

Reminds me of how George W. Bush would regularly misspeak and generally try to come across as a redneck. He wanted to give the impression of a normal every-man against the liberal elite and basically everyone fell for it.

I agree with the assessment of Adam Curtis in Hypernormalisation about Trump as well- that his repeated and blatant lies were not due to stupidity but were a political strategy designed to confuse and frustrate opposition. And it worked. When you saturate the public with so many lies and scandals, it's hard to even know where to start. People spent so much time fact-checkimg and proving he was lying that they missed something important: he didn't care one bit if his lies were exposed. It was misdirection while he used the presidency to funnel money to his personal corporations, elevate his family to positions of power, jack up military spending, and gut social programs.

[jcnporter]

A number of people in the media have reported witnessing Johnson deliberately mess up his hair before going on camera, he's smart enough to know that his constructed persona makes him 'relatable' and that the compliant UK press lap it up and amplify it.
I've even read someone saying that, by accident, they happened to watch Johnson deliver the same speech twice to separate audiences. Each time, the hair was the same, the speech was word-for-word the same, including the bumbling pauses, unfinished phrases and exclamations, all in exactly the same places. A complete performance, in other words.

Reminds me of how George W. Bush would regularly misspeak and generally try to come across as a redneck. He wanted to give the impression of a normal every-man against the liberal elite and basically everyone fell for it.

I agree with the assessment of Adam Curtis in Hypernormalisation about Trump as well- that his repeated and blatant lies were not due to stupidity but were a political strategy designed to confuse and frustrate opposition. And it worked. When you saturate the public with so many lies and scandals, it's hard to even know where to start. People spent so much time fact-checkimg and proving he was lying that they missed something important: he didn't care one bit if his lies were exposed. It was misdirection while he used the presidency to funnel money to his personal corporations, elevate his family to positions of power, jack up military spending, and gut social programs.

At least in the US there's still a media that actually tried to fact check and prove he was lying and has an active interest in opposing the government.
The UK media simply don't bother or are actively complicit in the lying and spent most of their time scrutinising the opposition party when Corbyn was leader.
Add in that no matter what the scandal, no UK government minister need resign and the 'new leadership' of the opposition will refuse to call for resignations and mainly agrees with the government, or abstains on important issues, then the UK is a pretty bleak place now, politically.