What the Fuchs?

“I’m impressed Liz, I thought I was good at wasting public money and lining my pockets while the serfs queue at the food banks, but you really take the biscuit!” (Works both ways 👀)

That's gone well XD

Nige, Shakey and Walsh, happy days

the use of bee killing pesticides springs to mind. dont know whats going on with that coal mine in Cumbria either

Problem is the vast majority who vote Conservative and describe themselves as Conservatives would define conservatism about as inaccurately as they would define socialism. The Conservative Party are anything but conservative - in fact they've become frankly authoritarian over the past few years - and many of their voters don't necessarily identify with traditionally conservative principles. Instead they focus on whataboutery handed to them in the right wing media sphere (presumably because they can't give ordinary people a concrete reason why they are better off under a government which prioritises its donors and the wealthy), and they justify their voting habits based on who they're not voting for and why, instead of the opposite. Hence why on online comments pages you see things like 'can't define what a woman is...', and catchall terms like 'woke' and 'cancel culture', and vague and unsubstantiated things like 'got Brexit done' and 'he got all the big things right'. To paraphrase Nige, these guys should get their heads out the sand. The extent that people in this country have been manipulated by billionaire owned media really is frightening, to the extent where any politician or public figure who demonstrates even the slightest concern for the poor, or for refugees for instance can be 'smeared' as a socialist, or woke by people who know their audience don't know what these terms mean, and that these terms are not inherently bad. Christ people use the word Marxist like its a swear word. Marx made a critique of capitalism, (that it was exploitative of workers), one that has proved to be valid - he didn't call for an overthrow of capitalism but stated that it was likely under extreme conditions. I just wish people were honest about the terms they used and stopped manipulating those who can't tell if they're being manipulated, or who's doing the manipulating as has unfortunately been the state of the British electorate for some time

Just out of interest why do people complain when elected politicians abuse public money, avoid accountability and are treated above the law, but it’s great when a family of unelected billionaires do it? Struggling to understand the hypocrisy.

Booked tickets to see Kaiser Chiefs and Florence and the Machine at the o2 in November - I think I’m addicted to live music now lol, last gigs I went to before this year was Morrissey and Johnny Marr almost 10 years ago, now these two are gonna be the 7th and 8th of the year as it stands! Two Door Cinema Club, The Wombats and Pale Waves in Finsbury Park this summer might be good too On the way to Brum to see Aurora now, traffic’s horrendous 👌💀

Oh and that poor woman who was stuck in Iran for the past 6 years ostensibly due simply to the sheer incompetence of Johnson publicly contradicting her, was actually due to the government refusing to pay a debt it admits is legitimate. It should be a scandal of massive proportions, yet they’ve tried to spin it as a bit of good news. If I was her family I’d be suing the government in a heartbeat.

https://news.sky.com/story/amp/ministers-drop-plan-to-cap-mps-second-job-earnings-after-sleaze-scandal-12568486 Bet the tories et al are rubbing their hands over the timing of the Ukraine crisis, able to wash their hands of a load of stuff without public scrutiny, like rowing back on anti corruption legislation, environmental legislation promised in the manifesto (no surprises that was a lie), partygate and of course the taxpayer paying for the royal family to evade justice over trafficking to name but a few. What a fantastic country we live in. Every time I see the police brutalising protesters in Moscow (as in Hong Kong previously) and see MPs condemning it I can’t help but remember this government is still actively seeking to ban the universal right to peaceful protest!!

Saw CHVRCHES on Wednesday at the o2 in Brixton…wow. Support act were decent, then they came on at 9, 14 songs later they went off for the old encore schtick…. Then who should emerge with them but Robert Smith of The Cure! He did a mini gig of 4 songs with them, including Just Like Heaven! Great night! Seeing AURORA at Birmingham Town Hall on the 27th (and Leeds and London lol) plus Florence and the Machine have announced a new tour 👌. Hopefully this is the end of covid concerts 🤞 Btw has anyone ever spoken to bands as they arrive or leave at a venue before? When I arrived at the o2 as I walked past the production door a black car pulled up next to me and Chvrches got out - I was the only one there but I felt I’d be rude asking for a photo or autograph or something cos they were busy getting stuff out the car. What do you think the etiquette for something like that should be?

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/business-and-finance/2022/02/the-tories-talk-tough-on-russia-and-welcome-its-dirty-money ‘A report that came out in the US last week, written by a former Obama-era official, said that “uprooting Kremlin-linked oligarchs” would be a “challenge given the close ties between Russian money and the United Kingdom’s ruling Conservative Party, the press and its [Britain’s] real estate and financial industry”.’

Or maybe the government/Johnson sycophants have finally realised that even their usual repertoire of mental gymnastics to defend the indefensible isn’t enough to deflect or muddy the water this time. I think most of the ones with a conscience know how utterly contemptible this government is, and we’re not even talking about the frankly authoritarian and dangerous legislation the government is pursuing

Don’t know what she’s got to do with it tbh, in fact her and her family are a major part of the problem with class obsessions and obsequiousness we have in this country that normalises corruption and cronyism among the old boys networks the Tory Party thrives on and is used as a faux-nationalist symbol to justify abuses of power such as this government routinely undertakes.

Very 80s

Yeah it was the John Lewis Christmas ad in 2015, I remember liking it at the time and also liking her song on Fifa 16 as well but I never delved further until a few months ago and she’s brilliant can’t believe it took me so long. She was great again tonight at Rough Trade East in London, I honestly don’t know how she’s making any money though, £13.50 I got a concert a cd and another signing/meet and greet, she’s probably still there now the amount of time she spent with everyone! Then you have the likes of Adele cancelling Las Vegas shows four hours before they start…whereas on Friday we were queuing up for a free signed vinyl (should be like £27) and she was going down the queue actually apologising that we were having to wait outside in the cold!

Saw Aurora last night at PRYZM in Kingston, she was fantastic idk if anyone is aware of her. Meet and greet as well with a free vinyl, not bad for £11! Seeing her again later Sunday night, if anyone likes artists like Florence and the Machine, Chvrches, Kate Bush, Bjork or anyone like that they’ll love her, she should be more well known than she is

https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jan/15/protesters-rally-across-uk-against-police-and-bill Say goodbye to freedom of speech and the right to protest. Anyone who came here from Hong Kong after China started cracking down on dissenters is gonna wonder what the hell they’ve done swapping one authoritarian democracy hating regime for another

Well we basically already do have a presidential system in that the prime minister actually has a lot more power respectively than say the president of the US because literally the only thing they need is a majority and then they can get away with corruption and dismantling citizens rights like we are seeing and have seen under de Pfeffel. What we also have though is a parasitic and anachronistic institution in the monarchy on top of that which is an insult to anyone who values democracy, equality and social mobility. What’s more is if an elected politician abuses their power it is possible for them to be removed. Whereas the royal family can have an insidious influence on legislation to benefit themselves as they always have done, can waste vast amounts of public money on ridiculous luxury while the plebs are encouraged to use food banks, can act without scrutiny or accountability and can produce thousands of tonnes of Co2 every year on their private jets - and probably soon a yacht - while criticising the plebs on climate issues and be lauded for it because people like the escapism of reading about them in the daily mail to distract them from the hardships in their own life that these scroungers will never have to face. They literally laugh at us behind closed doors - you know Charles took a private train from one of their palaces in Scotland to another one of their palaces in London in 2019 at the cost of around £22,000 or £40 per mile (source BBC). Doesn’t matter, let’s get the family in for a PR photo shoot and get them talking about Kates’s dress or how bad Meghan is so the plebs don’t realise how pointless and offensive the existence of a monarchy in a 21st century first world country actually is. I hope monarchists never have the hypocrisy to look down on anyone claiming any sort of benefits because they literally hero worship the biggest benefits cheats in the country. No one should be given preferential treatment because of the family they were born into or be above the law.

Probably get judged for this but I just emptied my spice cupboard on a frozen pizza before putting it in, curry powder is well nice on it 😂 closest I can get to the tandoori pizza Papa John’s used to do 🥵

So do you think I’m being unrealistic in attempting to learn Norwegian with an eye on the other Scandinavian languages, or is the ability to understand Danish or Swedish after learning Norwegian something which is usually possible only for native speakers? After all I am worried about learning Bokmal in the Oslo dialect and going to, say Bergen, and not being able to understand anyone, let alone understanding any Danish or Swedish! There’s such a diversity of dialects in the country that apparently even native Norwegians can struggle to understand other native dialects (though I suppose that’s similar to how someone from London might struggle to understand someone from Glasgow or Cumbria) - can you understand all Norwegian dialects, and did you also start by learning Bokmal? I know Nynorsk is a relatively new writing system designed to incorporate the vocabulary from the different dialects, and that some of the dialects are more similar to Nynorsk than Bokmal. It just seems so daunting that I’m learning ‘Jeg’, ‘Ikke’, ‘Hva’, ‘Hvorfor’, and ‘Deg’ for instance but if I went to Bergen I would hear ‘Eg’, ‘Ikk’je’, ‘Ka’, ‘Koffor’ and ‘DeGG’ 🥶😂 edit: just saw your reply while typing, duolingo tries to teach me ‘Jenta’ but yeah ‘Jenten’ makes more sense to my brain 😅 lots of difficult rules to remember like when to use Det/Den or Et/En as well (not sure how many people use ‘Ei’ as it seems the masculine and feminine are combining into one, at least in some of the dialects. And with Bokmal I’ve been told that it’s basically different from how Norwegians actually speak, but it’s the only way for me to begin to learn the language realistically 😎

Yeah I feel the best way to learn a language is to actually speak to people from the country - atm I’m learning Bokmal (which nobody actually speaks as it’s just ‘book language) in an Oslo dialect which is what they have on duolingo, but this is also the writing system most similar to Swedish. The problem is even if I became proficient in it I could listen to someone from Tromso or Bergen and be completely lost 😂 Because the country is so sparsely populated they have such a strange mixture of dialects in different areas and spoken Norwegian is different from written Norwegian…and yeah they use Nynorsk to write a lot in the west, so it actually seems a lot harder language to tackle than I thought when I first started out! Apparently most of them speak good English as well so I feel like learning this language might have to be just a hobby and appreciation of their culture rather than anything immediately useful… Have you managed to learn much Norwegian? I love how we share many words and how many words sound similar to the English, and verb conjugations are a lot more simple (jeg snakker, du snakker, de snakker are all the same rather than French je parle, tu parles, ils parlent) but I’m currently struggling with gendered nouns as there seems to be quite a lot of inconsistency (like the woman - kvinnen, the women kvinnene, the girl - jentA, the girls jentene)

I consider myself to be very left wing so perhaps don’t see eye to eye with Blair on everything, but without a doubt the Blair and Brown governments were among the best we’ve had post war, especially in terms of carrying the whole country with them in improving everyone’s lives, not just those of the super rich who the Tories cater for. I always preferred Brown though, he was more genuine I think and an extremely clever man. Compare these governments with the dross we’ve had before and since…though this current cesspit leave me nostalgic for May and Cameron lmao, never thought any govt could make me think that 😂

Covid? I always get recommended Wolf Alice so would have been a good chance to check them out 😖 I’m supposed to see AURORA in London on the 21st January, bet that’s gonna get cancelled…

Been looking for a bit of advice actually from anyone with any knowledge of Scandinavian languages. I’ve been learning Norwegian (Bokmal) on DuoLingo because I read you can understand Danish and Swedish if you understand it - can people from Denmark understand Norwegian and vice versa? I know there’s a tonne of different dialects in Norwegian and two written standards (Bokmal and Nynorsk), but the internet told me it was easy for English speakers to learn so fingers crossed 😂

Whereas the queen’s generation were just money suckers lol. Anyone who defends such an outrageously anachronistic, undemocratic and anti egalitarian system is beyond all reason imo, the fact we still gleefully hand over hundreds of millions of £s every year to a secretive family of billionaires while we still have poverty and food banks and cuts to foreign aid sickens me.