A Literary Interlude
October 18, 2008
THE DIFFICULTY
by Peter Kocan (HT Club Troppo)
“It is difficult to eat well outside the capital cities.” — Food writer Cherry Ripe on ABC Radio, 1/10/97
It’s a heartrending thing to see
A gourmet who’s been caught peckish
And who knows he will never make it back
To the capital by dinner time.
There’s the look of mute despair in the eye,
The slack lips and distended belly,
The hand clutching the empty champers bottle,
The weak voice crying out for caviar.
We found a whole car-load of them once,
Their BMW stalled by the roadside.
We somehow got them back to the homestead
And offered what we could for pity’s sake.
There was nothing appropriate in the house,
Just Mum’s Sunday roast with the trimmings,
Followed by the apple-pie and cream.
Of course they couldn’t swallow muck like that.
We had to watch them wasting away.
We buried the pitiful bodies by the creek.
You blame yourself, thinking they might’ve lived
If only you’d had a French chef standing by.
Now we brood continually upon
Hardships that we have never known,
The endless compassion that we owe
To palates more exquisite than our own.
[Reprinted from 10/10/2006]
Anarcho-tyranny in the U.K.
October 18, 2008
Dear Readers–
Some years ago the paleocon Sam Francis used the term “anarcho-tyranny” in an article to describe a system of government that is:
a combination of anarchy (in which legitimate government functions—like spying on the bad guys or punishing real criminals—are not performed) and tyranny (in which government performs illegitimate functions—like spying on the good guys or criminalizing innocent conduct like gun ownership and political dissent).
The result of anarcho-tyranny is that government swells in power, criminals are not controlled, and law-abiding citizens wind up being repressed by the state and attacked by thugs.
Anarcho-tyranny is the perfect description for the following article from THE TELEGRAPH (UK) brought to this Journal’s attention by Ambush Predator:
A £3,000 blank wall built for teenage graffiti artists by a council was painted by a disgruntled taxpayer with the slogan: “I paid my tax and all I got was this lousy wall”.
The 6ft high by 30ft long wall was installed so youths could practice their graffiti artwork without vandalising local property.
But ahead of its opening on October 31 a fed-up resident sneaked behind a security fence and daubed a protest about the use of taxpayer’s money.
This heinous act of a taxpayer putting graffiti on a graffiti wall and spoiling it for the juvenile deliquents has caused the local Constabulary (who came up with the idea to build the graffiti wall in the first place) to threaten:
“But it is now going to cost the taxpayer, as we will have to crime it, investigate it and paint over it.
“We have been working hard to try to provide something positive for the community and this coward and their juvenile delinquent act has set a terrible example to the youth of the town.
“All residents were given the opportunity to raise objections during the planning process. This person could have come and spoken to us instead of committing this petty act.
“To paint graffiti on the wall and remain anonymous shows this person has no courage, I would have more respect if he or she came forward and admitted responsibility.”
Words fail me.
But not commenter Ross at Ambush Predator:
If they were capable of investigating graffiti vandalism, then they wouldn’t need the wall would they?
Couldn’t they just build a second wall for angry taxpayers to express their dissatisfaction with building the first wall?
Yours Sincerely,
Mild Colonial Boy
A French Musical Interlude
October 16, 2008
An Amusing Comment at Fulham Reactionary
October 9, 2008
At the article Immigration and the Birth Rate, the commentator “Billy Bragg, the Bard of Barking” said…
As I have said many times before, it’s clear that we are experiencing levels of immigration unprecedented in our history. The make-up of this country is being changed before our eyes.
Racist, reactionary, crypto-nazi rubbish. “Britain” is a nation of immigrants and always has been. We’d collapse as a “nation” if it weren’t for immigrants doing jobs that “natives” won’t do — like suicide bombing, gang rape, mob stabbing, electoral fraud, consanguineous marriage, infecting people with drug-resistant TB, etc, etc. Race doesn’t exist, everyone’s the same under the skin and you wouldn’t believe how hard it is for me to live in hideously white Dorset rather than some vibrant, ethnically enriched area of London. But, unlike some on the left, I live my principles and I’ve always believed that socialism’s about personal sacrifice.
Deogolwulf on Britishness
October 8, 2008
I am not sure what Britishness means, but, from what I hear, it has something to do with celebrating diversity, embracing and empowering communities, and working together for a vibrant society of respect and equality and democratic values — from which ugly rash of words I am led to imagine that it is some frightful disease engineered and released by a committee of sociologists, Fabians, and women with “ethnic” earrings.
~~Deogolwulf on The National Day at The Joy of Curmudgeonry.
Advertisment
October 6, 2008
Wisdom from the Past
October 5, 2008
(Click on image to view it fully)
A Bail-out Musical Interlude
October 5, 2008
Annie — It’s a Hard Knock Life
Truth told in Jest
October 5, 2008
(HT to lowercase liberty)
Burke on the Jacobins
October 4, 2008
… these pretended citizens treat France exactly like a country of conquest … The policy of such barbarous victors [is] … to destroy all vestiges of the ancient country, in religion, in polity, in laws and in manners; to confound all territorial limits, to produce a general poverty; to put up their properties to auction; to crush their princes, nobles and pontiffs; to lay low everything which had lifted its head above the level, or which could serve to combine or rally, in their distresses, the disbanded people, under the standard of old opinion.
~~Edmund Burke. Reflections on the Revolution in France. (1789). (qtd. in Why Manners Matter by Lucinda Holdforth)
A Novelty Song Interlude
September 23, 2008
Dear Readers– If you enjoy Country and Western here is an oldie but a goodie that was playing on my local country station as I went to work this morning.
Little Jimmy Dickens — May the Bird of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose
The Comedic Stylings of Turnbull and Rudd
September 22, 2008
Dear Readers–
As Malcolm Turnbull and Kevin Rudd have recently attempted a version of a Monty Python skit , The Boy’s Own Paper would like to present the original:
Four Yorkshireman
