What happened to Peter York is my first thought.

Though I agree with his underlying sentiment.

Surely this is the reaction against junk food and the bland tasteless city high streets in general. No matter theres a new shopping mall going up...you know it'll be Footlocker, Next, JD Sports, Starbucks, Mac D's and dull department stores ect that'll fill it. I'll take a rural idyll quarter; small boutiques selling clobber, tea houses, Shetland Isle mussels, pubs with rustic furniture and papers to read all day, every day. Its perhaps more a sign of things that are wrong in the UK that more people in the cities can't afford to do so or are happy with their lot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iRN8iJDi_I

Authenticity really only comes from the real relationships you have with other people, your immediate environment and the things that occupy it. That cant be bottled and sold..well maybe to people that have a void where others dont. Im not sure what else comes into it

Difficult decisions = mass deception in his case..it worries me that people like you Hep swallow his rot how close did that scumbag have to rub up against, Murdoch, big business, the banks etc to get the backing he did. Corbyn talks about successful approaches to society that already exsist in the western world. Politics is about interest and at the moment our society is run in the interest of profit as dictated by neo-liberalism, to say that's the way its got to be shows at the very least you lack imagination it also shows you're completely oblivious to the idea that just because you say you're a realist doesn't give you an excuse to waver humanity.

Last edited by Bop (2015-08-30 06:09:04)

The appeal of Corbyn to the middle-class Guardianista is that they can have their cake and eat it. Corbyn will never gain power as PM, so they can attain all the instant kudos and counter-culture credentials of being a socialist revolutionary without having the indignity of having to endure life under Corbyn's Labour. It's actually quite clever and also a good tactic in the class war against the uncouth working classes which most Guardianista's from the frothy heights of their latte and cappucinos view with a mixture of hatred and fear.

I once sent a pitch to the Lonely Planet for a guide on travelling in the footsteps of the Beat writers. I still think it would have added value to the brand. The guides themselves are pretty subjective and error prone. The one for Brazil slagged-off the Gorota de Ipanema as not authentic and praised some rubbish restaurant around the corner as the place where the authentic cariocas dined. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The grand hotel always a winner, except if you've got young kids in which case all that exquisite exclusiveness is wasted as the nightmare begins as you take your first sip of Pol Roger’s champagne as an aperitif and continues until you’ve hastily finished your meal whilst trying to maintain some level of decorum on the proceedings. You end-up trapped in a world on the level of Center Parcs: all family clubs and all-inclusive holiday packages where you enjoy the 4 star canteen eating experience to your heart’s content as you put on several kilos from the endless cavalcade of buffets morning, noon and night. Then you proceed to the kids disco and on into the night with the local amateur tarantella dance troupe and ABBA tribute band. There’s a certain communal and Soviet era quality to it all, all that is missing is heavy vodka drinking, which might add something positive to the experience. It makes Hi-De-Hi look 5 star.

The old school / ancient members club is definitely something that is missing here in the Netherlands, indeed, outside of London and working men’s and golf clubs, not forgetting masonic lodges in the provinces, it’s never really been part of the UK experience. And some of them were grim, the RAFA Club in my home town was in some old Air Warden’s hut and had bare fluorescent lighting that lent a certain absence of mood and harsh uniform quality of light to the desperate situation of drinking as much beer as possible in the shortest time, for the cheapest price around. Those provincial golf clubs are the worse though, a perfect home for snobbery, bigotry and life lived without any humour at all. There was a time that these types dominated some industries, back when deals were struck on golf courses, but thankfully business ethics, transparency in tender processes, the obligatory code of conduct and the fact that today’s oligarch, Petrobras and Arab clients want to be bribed without having to demonstrate handicaps & prefer to have their lady-boy hookers up-front, have assigned the golf bore and weekly golf days to the dust-bin of history. It's by no accident that new Jaguar cars don’t have the golf-club sized boots anymore. Great!

Travel by rail in 1st class is still the best, but the usual suspects are intent on spoiling this. If the Chinese can have scanners and bag checks on the subways in Beijing and Shanghai, then we should have the capabilities to install this for the Thalys and Eurostar without taking 3 years in endless-consultations and costing 2bn pounds to implement. Let's hope the necessary security is in place very shortly. I am looking for a handy alternative to those city-jet hops from Rotterdam to London City, which can often be quite turbulent and additonally being located in the part of town where the action isn't.

The horrific realities of the food industry etc have made their way into the public consciousness, and now what used to be the norm before intensive farming etc etc is something that can be heavily marketed and ridiculously overpriced. Back in the day 'artisan' baking techniques, for example, were the norm. Now artisan bread is something that costs a small fortune and is hard to locate. Yet really it's just a decent loaf of bread.

It's similar with clothes. One example amongst many - recently Clarks produced some made in the UK desert boots. Cost a small fortune, came with all sorts of ridiculous claims and a 'free' gift . . . back in the day it was taken for granted - if you paid for Clarks desert boots you got quality. Now quality is some wildly extravagant added extra that only the rich can afford.

Of course for clothes (and other things) it is possible to find some degree of quality cheaply, particularly for those of us who are happy to wear dead man's clothing.

Last edited by Yuca (2015-09-03 05:20:20)

Last edited by doghouse (2015-09-03 14:09:11)