Subtlety

[NJS]

And some who should know better.

As Yeats said:

''The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity''

[couch]

Indeed. I try to take comfort in the fact that we have survived 98 years since he wrote that. Still, it's sometimes hard to be sanguine about the next 98.

[NJS]

Indeed. I try to take comfort in the fact that we have survived 98 years since he wrote that. Still, it's sometimes hard to be sanguine about the next 98.

It is true that he was writing about the Nazi dogs of Europe, rather than mere street dogs on the televisual stage but they are all the result of populist movements. It makes me smile with wonder when I hear all the parading and touting of modern (so-called) 'democracy' as a sublime benefit to mankind - and see the potentates of the Middle East queuing up to pay it lip-service to avoid the next barrage of scud missiles. Everyone fails to mark the point that, since it came of age (I suppose with the universal franchise), Britain has declined from being the greatest power on earth to a mere poodle, without even an aircraft carrier to its name! The Great Lie of the Age is in the words ''Great Western Democracy'' and, while I am as utterly appalled as any by the use of terrorism to achieve objectives, I can at least see that there may be those who see the effects of populist government, achieved through 'democratic reform', as a means to the thin end of the wedge: government by the ignorant and selfish and slovenly, for the benefit of the ignorant and selfish and slovenly. The fact that our governments condescend as they do, to tell us that we are all so stupid that we need plain packaging of tobacco to discourage us from using tobacco; because we are all also so stupid that we do not consider the risks (and so on and so forth), just shows what we have vbecome as a civilization: one in which there is no aspiration, and no expectation: the paradise of the Miss Dumb Blonde and Mr Jerk, each with an IQ of 80. They are in control. Do I like it? Of course not. Am I then a snob? You bet your boots I am!

Moreover, in modern Britain, paedophiliacs and child-murderers run amok, while the parliament, elected by Miss Dumb Blonde and Mr Jerk, seriously spends time to debate how to twist the marriage laws out of shape to fit unions that would have had the prophets of the Old Testament preaching hellfire and brimstone and would have seen The Boss flinging around bolts of lightning and flattening whole cities of the plain. The Great Lie lives on and we see its effects more and more.

The sad thing is that it has turned the corner and there is no heading back to sanity now.

And that is all as subtle as putting a brick through a plate glass window.
NJS

[Costi]

And then....we have this mob:

http://uk.omg.yahoo.com/news/celebrity- ... 00808.html

Templates and style leaders for the yoof of today. Ye gods! - Well, Ye yobs, anyway!
NJS

And some who should know better.

what you see is what you get...

Moreover, in modern Britain, paedophiliacs and child-murderers run amok, while the parliament, elected by Miss Dumb Blonde and Mr Jerk, seriously spends time to debate how to twist the marriage laws out of shape to fit unions that would have had the prophets of the Old Testament preaching hellfire and brimstone and would have seen The Boss flinging around bolts of lightning and flattening whole cities of the plain.

I suppose you mean the union of Miss Dumb Blonde and Mr Jerk

Nicholas, much as I admire most of your writings, some of them have the strange effect of actually making me empathize with the likes of those in the pinky pictorial that you posted
The governments are stupid to think that we are stupid - haha! so do we have to give them power by taking them seriously and become passionate about it?! "The best lack all conviction", right?...
We can still live OUR lives and not "theirs" - perhaps even more than a century ago, when I am sure you agree there was fault (of different kind) to be found with the governing, as well.
And what can we possibly and reasonably put in place of this "Great Western Democracy"?! Perhaps Leibniz (or Candide, if you prefer ) was right that we live in the best of POSSIBLE worlds. Even if not everything is to everyone's satisfaction, we can still make choices, freely. Better worlds could be imagined, but they might not be possible...

[NJS]

Costi - first: 'The best lack(ed) all conviction' was the reason that Hitler and his Axis powers got their chance and that is the point: once civilization is seriously undermined, because the best lack all conviction, 'anarchy is loosed upon the world'. My real complaint is that: increasingly there is needless over-regulation of the minutiae of daily life for the generally law-abiding, while the seriously criminal are at large; moreover, minority groups, which have rightly won the right to be free as adults to do as they please, provided that they do not harm others, now want to twist language and law to make round pegs fit in square holes (so to speak) - and 'the lunatics are suddenly in charge of the asylum'. An example is that the church of England finds itself in the position of having to face refusing to offer ceremonies of marriage at all, if civil partnerships for same sex partners are extended to legal 'marriage'. This demonstrates that the true core of society has gone soft and the lunatic fringe are on the rampage. I am not suggesting that anyone should be oppressed or be refused tolerance but, as (my) smoking is, in the jargon of the age 'denormalized' as an activity, by self-righteous pressure groups, it sticks in my craw to perceive that various other minority interests are not just being accepted and tolerated but are being pushed in my face, claiming a mainstream normality that they just do not possess; bringing with them, as in the example of the C of E, a further step in the destruction of the society into which I was born.

All that I would like is to see tolerance from those who demand it from me - as well as the use of common sense and the acceptance of limits to minority interest reforms.

For example, I had to live with the sudden disappearance (literally overnight, and without notice), of my very favourite cigarettes in the early 1990s because some bright spark decided that he knew so much that was best for me that he would, with some assumption of right which I deny, refuse me the choice of finding the means to my own destruction; despite the fact that we are all on a ride towards death: not life - but through it: towards death. It has gone on from there to a smoking ban in public places. I can just about live with that; despite the fact that it means that I cannot smoke with smoking friends in a high-ceilinged club room called a 'smoking room'. Now, however, this same twerp claims the right to make my tobacco supplier confuse and confound my order for pipe tobacco or snuff by demanding that all tobacco products are wrapped in plain wrapping - apparently, to deter youngsters from thinking that smoking is 'glamorous' - when, in fact, done right, it is glorious. Enough! I cry but there are few who will join me. Thus grew the miseries of communism, fascism and all the other totalitarian horrors of the world; including, apparently, Great Western Democracy - which looks mightily as though it would like to put us all in the shackles and chains of some strange and peculiar control. Come back, Sadie Stern! All is forgiven!

I know that it is unpopular and suggested to be pointless to protest - (that has been said before!) - but I do and I shall continue to do so because a way of life and Liberty herself are under threat - but people are divided on this: some see it and care and say so; some see it and care but keep quiet; some people don't see it at all, and some people see it and believe that they (cocooned as they are), will be unaffected! There are times to stand up for principles and now is one of them.

Referring again to the Yeats' poem, it seems to me that:-

'The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,'

What has this got to do with 'subtlety'? Well - quite a bit when you think about it - I have rights too and, within reason, everyone else should be subtle enough to respect them. Moreover, a lack of subtlety, in the 'celebrity' yobs posted up earlier, demonstrates the pass that the world is in.

NJS

[NJS]

And now we have: 'Cry God for Hairy, England and St George!' Of course, if 'Wills and Kate' don't produce an heir, England might return to a New Edwardian Age under HRH Prince Hairy ; the age of the Teddy Bares.