jaywalker

???? Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Please define the worst sectors of the UK > electorate too - people who don't agree with you > maybe? > > PS Pseuds Corner anyone Well, I don't agree with the people I saw (and whose actions I heard of from local EU residents, including one 80 year old lady) shouting abuse at anyone they perceived to be not British after the referendum result. People who think like this (only the rabid ones actually articulate it) form a troubling part of electorates in all occidental countries. Of course the visibility of this (and the amount of it) varies with many socio-economic factors. You can find them in most political parties (in the Lib Dems it tends to be sublimated). It takes different forms (the will to purify can be expressed as extreme nationalism, homophobia, anti-Semitism etc - these do not necessarily go together.) What Adorno called the authoritarian personality. It has nothing to do with Brexit as such - the majority of those voting for Brexit are perfectly sensible people (and indeed they were led by old-fashioned globalising liberals Johnson and Gove who will have been dismayed by the new May agenda). And certainly neither May nor Rudd are authoritarian in this sense (authoritarian MPs are quickly weeded out by the whips and remain on the backbenches). But I believe the language of politics matters greatly. We should expect from our leaders great care not to pander in any way however slight to such people. Counting foreign workers in firms is a proposal that does not meet that standard. You say it is not a policy. But the Home Secretary is in a position of huge responsibility and it was presented as her view. I doubt very much that she has really thought about the matter at all in these terms - it was just populist rubbish for a conference; but as such it is deeply irresponsible. I'm sorry if the post sounded pseudish (used to love reading that column in private eye :-) ). But this does not seem to me a matter for light-heartedness or pulling back on vocabulary or ideas (my tin ear is such that I can't really hear the pseud-ness you can hear). Do you really think that democracy cannot be overtaken by authoritarianism democratically?

The government has shown its true colours. I guess Theresa May was already fully subscribed to this despicable Ruritanianism (Gellner, Nations and Nationalism). So now there will be a policy that firms must count their foreign workers so that they can be monitored and if not 'patriotic' because employing them (or is it employing any of them?) named and shamed. No doubt foreign-born workers will soon have to wear badges (otherwise, how could one tell they were foreign - a mistake the appalling Ms Rudd seems to have made in her own constituency, thinking they were foreign because they looked foreign to HER). This as part of a power-grab from an unelected Prime Minister to appeal to the worst segments of the UK electorate - those who with good reason feel ressentiment (this is not a spelling mistake) but who express this as xenophobic, reactionary, petty-mindedness. Give us our country back, build walls and fences, stop all immigration now (whether or not that has anything whatsoever to do with the EU). Small wonder the pound is tanking. We have seen nothing yet.

I feel like i'm in a school playground suddenly (where indeed I was bullied for my enthusiasms). There are many posts where a similar response might be made (so many comments on things that are of no interest to me and which those expressing an interest strike me as stupid - probably the majority of threads in fact). But isn't the ethic that if you DO have an interest then it should be open to others? Ridicule just closes the thread down. Of course it MIGHT be that NO ONE is interested in the internet of things - in which case I am solipsistic and the ridicule is appropriate. But the hundreds of millions of pounds being invested in smart-home tech would suggest otherwise. if you think a post is irrelevant, of no interest, or simply an artifact of an obsession, then better to ignore it than cast scorn? For sure I'll take my enthusiasm elsewhere. But as a parting shot: I remember that the CEO of IBM once said we'd only need 5 computers in the world. That where I worked (30 years ago) said computers were of no use to the organisation. That when I suggested networking them might be a good idea they laughed at me. That the internet was thought to be a superfluous technology (we already talk to each other WITHIN the organisation so why this?). That wifi would probably cook our brains. That the internet of things is just a gimmick. It isn't.

I have had something of an epiphany over the last few weeks. The smart iPhone app things were one thing, but to be able to tell Alexa (Echo) to turn them off/on was something else. Setting heating and lights (and percentage dimmed lights) by voice, without having to find my iPhone is wonderful. Also being able to play music - and through my hi fi when 'dot' is released later this month (small wonder google is releasing something similar in November and Apple are 'working on it'). But I have some frustrations. I hope this thread may 1. act as a wish list 2. alert users to new products available. I want to be able to ask Alexa to read my kindle books and do my shopping. Already enabled in USA, not here. I need Alexa controlled blinds (so I can activate them from Mexico). Anyone know of a system that works? To be able to turn garden watering (just a tap and a hose currently) off and on. Not a new irrigation system, just a controller between tap and pipe that goes on/off to voice command. Where is my cat? (without the need for an enormous collar around cat's neck). Why cannot I find an alarm or siren that goes off if powered ON? i.e. plugged into a smart plug. All such devices seem proprietary and linked to their own hub. I just want a machine that plays an alarm if the plug is powered ON. (the plug powers on with Hive if the window is forced open - so far I can just turn on a light!). Can anyone recommend the best garden lighting system (no need for intelligence as will be turned on via smart plug). Are there any motion-triggered cameras that can alert movement through windows? Other needs to follow ...

if you have a small suitcase open it and put a towel in bottom (I also have rubber foam under towel), then put the suitcase under the bed so that it is dark (ensure bed cover down to floor). after butter treatment (as described above) show cat his new safe retreat. (wash towel every week). i'd also just carry him home and keep him in a few days. Worth giving him a special meal on return: e.g. m & s wafer thin turkey cut up and some crab (m & s usually have some half-price near its sell by date). b t w I found that m & s human tuna in spring water is a third of the price of Sainsbury's tuna steak for cats! vary his food by giving him webbox treats. the best catnip is Kong naturals (on amazon) - pretty much class A drug for cats (about 20% of cats refuse to become druggies though). be sure to get a catflap that only lets your cat in (via chip).

Nigello Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I am not keen on tropical/sub-tropical species, > mainly because they look out of place and are not > as likely to support the wildlife we have here. My point was that the climate is changing. Not having Elms used to look out of place to me - now the Chestnuts are dying. The wildlife has already started to move on: parakeets for example (the only constancy will probably be the adaptation of grey squirrels and the continued domestication of urban foxes). What looks out of place depends on what you are used to: but what you are used to no longer survives. Sometimes this is planning arbitrariness: there are some very large trees in East Dulwich planted by the Victorians: they would not be allowed today and will not be replaced.

One move might be to go to more sub-tropical species; with the increase in temperatures we've experienced these clearly thrive in the protected environment we have. These (all of which do well in my garden) will grow upright and have spectacular leaves and make no mess, they are all pretty much frost-hardy down to about-5C: tetrapanax papyrifera (t-rex) grows to about 20 feet eventually, with massive exotic leaves. musa basjoo (or equiv) hardy banana palm trees (any number of varieties) There is also plenty of space for more trees than currently planted. I would like to see a profusion of planting, a 'reforest Dulwich' campaign.

This is a central question for me. I guess the first time it really hit home was reading George Orwell's 'Coming Up for Air' - the 'legs!' headline. Certainly his best novel. People seem to be entrained to buying this paper (and others like it) and taking it both literally and as important. Why do retailers think it appropriate to stock it despite what are often obviously inflammatory and stupid headlines? Do tv soap operas instill a similar fascination? I think the likes of 'news 24' certainly does. Clearly, this is quite a disturbing issue - all the questions raised by Adorno are quickly coming home to roost.

> > Blah Blah Wrote: > > > Cameron was the end product of a party in > > > opposition for a long time. They'd tried > > > everything else. He was without doubt > > politically > > > naive and it got him in the end. This simply cannot be right. Cameron was recognised as a means to power by the rabid tories - on a 'niced up' Blair model. His unguent and empty public persona with its 'nice' manners (oh the quality) and rictus smile appealed far and wide - do you think Eton produces people who succeed otherwise? Probably not since Maynard Keynes. I agree that a first class degree in PPE is almost certainly a sign of naivete wrt to the antagonistic social; but intelligence is neither here nor there in achieving success (i.e. getting power) in politics (viz Major).

One of the weaknesses of the article in the first post is that it sees middle class behaviour as the outcome of intentional strategy (which is why middle class people tend to get very irate when you criticise the education system). A good example was the recent report that you should not wear brown shoes with a dark suit if you want a job in the city. How does one learn this cultural arbitrary (one which I routinely violate having retired)? Not at all through explicit instruction: it is a matter of disposition, learned tacitly, through unspoken exemplar. This is a synecdoche of the process - just multiply it up across all aspects of recognition (in the sense of 'are they one of us?'). May is a child of her time. She recognises populism for what it is and will pander to it through the bad faith that grammar schools increase social mobility (as in the 'why I am buying gold thread' in this section of the forum). As these unspeakable policies unfold I am increasingly thinking of leaving the country.

but the issue is location. there are hot spots and cold spots even on the hottest parts of lordship lane, let alone ED generally. the co-op space is potentially one of the hottest - but ice cold at the moment. if I were Waitrose I'd know where to try to go. Or perhaps M & S might convert it into a Kensington M & S style deli? went to M & S this afternoon in what i'd thought would be a dead spot: crowded even then.

By far best solution is (all from Amazon) 1. Buy Andrew James programmable chrome filter coffee maker with integrated grinder (currently ?79.99) 2. Buy Spiller and Tait Rainforest special blend beans (or their other mixes, to taste, but Rainforest is special) 3. Get a vacuum flask (vast array available at less than ?15) 4. Enjoy - much less effort than waiting in line and having to put up with a characterless drink.

I think you'd have to fly over the pond to find an inalienable right (where it basically means, watch out if you are an ethnic minority as you are x10 more likely to go to prison). Think that the rubbish brexit govt we have is going to give you a new version of that: but I'd look at the small print (and the wretched IP bill) before I got too excited. Louisa: it is too easy to form equivalences as in 'all basically the same'. Now where have I heard that expression before? For example, have you tried the suitably post-brexit named Empire Pie? I really did like that (and it would go VERY well with a side dish of fresh mango (at only ?3.45 :-)). Of course, 'basically the same' as Iceland's Shepherd's Pie, not.

Eric Ambler's pre WWII spy thrillers are exemplary and quite disturbing. Written in the 1930s.

there is everything wrong with 'real'. it is paraded as a full stop, a termination point to argument. a forensic fantasy. how could I get a handle on such a thing? and, if I thought I could, what would that imply about the status of the grammatical placeholder 'I' in that conviction? A kind of madness. the real is the beyond, the unsayable, that which resists, the uncanny. Not the other or the fantasy of the Other. Not the imaginary (interpellated or captated) or what can be expressed (the symbolic). but all that is NOT these things (Lacan).

DaveR Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > http://ftp.iza.org/dp10000.pdf > > There is indeed lots of literature arguing the > contrary - and many politicians, on both sides - > but they are largely free of any reference to > data. You are saying that Bourdieu's work is 'largely free of any reference to data' ?!???????!

signed. but I guess if one wants to use these registration sites then it would be an error to think that they should be free at the point of use in a world where governments (here local, but the point carries forward to general) are frightened wit-less by popular democracy.

It does now seem that May has been (to put it gently) over-promoted. Quite a thing to put forward a policy on grammar schools that has the chief inspector of schools, the previous Tory education secretary, the chairperson of the house of commons education committee and the only paper on the right-wing with a reading age greater than eleven (the Financial Times editorial today, reading age approx. fourteen) crying out in derision. Then there is the scrapping of Cameron's impending liberal justice-reforms, the fantasy of an iron curtain around the channel tunnel, the abolition of human rights in the new IP bill, and the vacuous mantra that 'brexit is brexit is brexit'. There seems scant regard here for the manifesto on which the Tories were elected. And each new policy in turn reflects a Ruritanian (in the sense admirably described by Gellner in Nations and Nationalism: parochial, inward-looking, ahistorical, nationalistic, and narcissistic) mindset that one suspects (or at least hopes :-( ) few people would find attractive if tested by a general election.

but don't we do this all the time? the imaginary, the symbolic, the real?

*Bob* Wrote: > Yeah I went in there yesterday, enticed by the 'no > queues' and only needing a few things - but found > it a slightly 'Soviet' shopping experience - so > M&S it was. For me the 'Soviet' shopping experience was memorable if rather surreal. Went (of course in the snow, and at -25C to the state record shop in Moscow (this is just before the soviet system disintegrated). Not a single CD on display, just empty shelves (as with all the other shops). However .... you just had to show either a few dollar bills or some Marlborough ciggies (nothing else would do) and back doors would miraculously open. No other way of acquiring the "Ministry of Culture Orchestra's" complete collection of Shostakovitch's symphonies for $15 :-). What may lie behind the empty shelves at the co-op, who knows?

James Barber Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > hi rich, > I'm bemused. Traffic speed analysed to see what > 85% of vehicles doing. Just because 85% may be > closed to the speed limit doesn't mean the other > 15% speeding should be ignored. Can you imagine > such an attitude to GBH or worse. Speeding > vehicles much higher chance of causing death or > serious injury. The 85% of vehicles going 15-20 > stand only a tiny chance of killing. Those doing > 25-35mph stand only a small chance of not being > killed or maimed as well as less time to dodge and > not be hit. James, I fully accept you are bemused. But please accept I am bemused by what you are saying here. No doubt we should both look to the assumptions we are making; however, I find it very difficult not to be convinced by what rch has said about this - perhaps you could explain the opportunity costs involved, or why this PARTICULAR street has been singled out for this expenditure when drivers are routinely (and way more than 15%) driving over 20mph in other speed controlled streets (not least Lordship Lane itself)? The point being that on LL and some other streets the variance is MUCH higher than on the narrow Melbourne (that already has bumps). Any driver could confirm this. This is not to say there will not be a fatality on Melbourne in its current state (one prays not). It is to say that such an event seems much less likely than on other road situations in ED. The 15% figure seems of no interest at all unless accompanied by a supporting figure for standard deviation AND comparable figures for surrounding streets in ED so that expenditure can be prioritised.

I agree about co-op - was very surprised on my trip yesterday about shelves, milk etc. But not really a problem for them as their supermarket is (fairly) profitable nationally (unlike their bank) and they don't of course have shareholders just you and me to receive our share of profits (well, I remember getting a share three years ago). Clearly they are out of tune with the new demographic here. Noticed that mid-day today the parking on LL near M & S was being occupied by a Londis truck, lol.

DaveR Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > All the talk is of social mobility which is huge > red herring - the evidence for the ability of a > particular model of educational provision to boost > mobility is thin to non-existent. A very recent > study comparing Denmark and the US concluded that > the lower inequality in Denmark is due to > redistribution, not greater employment mobility. > Which study is this? Difficult to respond without a reference to the text. There is an enormous literature arguing the contrary of course (the ur-text is Bourdieu's Reproduction.) I looked up on google and found one recent study comparing Denmark, the US and Canada: "Some of the chapters in the book, called From Parents to Children, deal with the important influence of early childhood education in determining adult outcomes, reflecting both parental investments and school quality. This theme reinforces existing research in economics, psychology, and sociology..." They go on to say that there are many other influences (bien sur). On another "humourous guide to Denmark" web site: "The Jante Law [not a law in our sense but a social norm] is part of all Danish education. There?s no elite education here, no advanced, or gifted and talented programs. If you child is better than the others at a certain subject, his (sic) job is to help the students who are not as good." Is this inaccurate? It certainly (other web sites) seems to be controversial (put the social ahead of the individual) - some find this suffocating so there are calls for more competition and individuality. Perhaps they will adopt grammar schools... One does rather hope not.

the Tories are always inclined to sign up to selection - it resonates with their infantile social Darwinist fantasies ('natural' differences in 'ability' need to be given a helping hand at an early age to find full expression - for the social is otherwise seen as likely to suffocate the development of the 'gifted'). The result of such policies is to stabilise social reproduction in exactly the way 'conservatives' want (that probabilistically you will do very much better if you are of the offspring of privilege). Grammar schools are an exercise in the most terrible bad faith here: they promise an 'escape' for a tiny number of children from very disadvantaged families (whereas, as with both my parents, they actually tend to be populated by people from the middle class who cant quite manage private school fees) so 'prove' that 'natural' selection is working and we don't have to worry about social reproduction (or the iniquities of private education). The tests are at an arbitrary age of the child and create a monstrous division between those who pass and those who fail (think of the person who just fails) on an image of 'intelligence' that is hocus pocus (i.e. one-dimensional, asserted to be validly measured by 'IQ' tests etc etc). You can get gold at the royal mint I think (guaranteed quality) and they will store it for you for a small fee. Gold might of course halve in value tomorrow. Titch Juicy: well, interest rates are certainly low by policy choice. But I've been trained to think that I cannot predict the future. One can devise scenarios either way of course. Buying gold is not for me about a forecast: it is about insuring against a spectrum of probabilities (I would count myself a king of infinite economic rationality if I did not have bad black swan dreams). And insurance is expensive (although less so with zero interest rates!) In a way I'm much more worried about the polarisation of people on immigration post referendum. It does seem to have unleashed a great torrent of abuse. The bbc news website yesterday hosted a 'discussion' on the crazy idea of fencing off Calais which was dominated 10 to 1 by xenophobia. People now seem to think its appropriate to say the most dreadful things about migrants.

1. Trump has many routes to actually win the US election. 'Peace through strength' (& etc). 2. May seems to be way further right-wing that anticipated - liberal justice reforms scrapped, eu workers under threat, the stupid return to grammar schools, brexit is brexit, insane adherence to nuclear weapons (& etc). 3. Almost imperceptible cracks now opening as a result of brexit (even though not yet implemented) - these will get much wider rapidly and unexpectedly. 4. Putin 5. With very low interest rates (misconceived B of E policy) people are way over-extended in risk bearing assets like high yield commercial bonds and shares with next to no dividend cover 6. Pension funds are about to go bust due to near zero interest rates 7. Trade wars will intensify with punitive fines of UK based accountancy firms by the US (even though we are not really EU). And this at a time when we are dreaming of 'free trade' - dear god. Disclaimer: I AM actually buying gold.