Last edited by formby (2014-08-09 07:46:55)

Last edited by Dudley Clarke (2014-08-09 16:05:05)

Quite a lot of errors and exaggerations in the last excerpt. First of all, name me what the 1950s' teens were doing to earn twenty pounds a week and how many of them were making it! Secondly, every generation since time began seems to have believed that it invented sex and the Victorians come in for such a lambasting on their alleged sexlessness that the truth comes as a bit of a surprise. Just look at how many children they had. Sabine "Onward Christian Soldiers" Baring-Gould had fifteen (well, his wife did). Compare their record with the record of infertility and impotence of the modern age.

The assertion that post-Brummell conventions became meaningless is another odd statement - they are ignored by a large section of the hoi poloi - but then they always have been. When Brummell was making his mark there were, socially and economiocally, a top 10000 people in Britain. The fact that the hoi poloi became more evident and their screeching could, at last, be heard is beside the point. Moreover the hankering after social status continued; it is just that those giving their imprimatur to the new conventions (e.g. for Teds) had shifted. There was a more defined leadership for the hoi poloi, quite in step with the growing trades union movement (which also played its own role in destroying the economy of the UK), as well as the rise of socialism which, now shorn of the benificent attributes (such as the full NHS), has turned the UK into an attractive begging bowl and bog-cleaners' clearing house for great swathes of immigrants, who couldn't give a flying **** for anything except their own rapid advancement.

Accordingly, the working class have not become the arbiters of style at all - they have been empowered to become their own worst enemies in becoming enabled to believe that they know what is best for themselves. Not that I object to that. But call a spade a bloody shovel.

The end of the piece makes me want to chuck my guts - especially the nearly triumphant declamation that WWII destroyed  the sense of family and tradition. There is nothing to be triumphant about in having enabled the prevalence of the values of the likes of Jimmy Saville and the hoards of perverts and businessmen behind them and the official protection that they received. Thankfully, I think that people are gradually waking up to this.

Last edited by Dudley Clarke (2014-08-11 07:03:44)

Last edited by formby (2014-08-11 11:35:09)

Last edited by Dudley Clarke (2014-08-11 12:47:49)

This is getting good.