The “ I’ve got something to say, but it doesn’t warrant its own thread “ thread.

[Fox92]

7 minutes ago, grobyfox1990 said:

Woolwich Arsenal are a docklands club through and through. Prob did get called the 1913 version of plastics until the generation forgot about it, just like youngsters now will think AFC wimbo and MK dons are two distinct clubs.

And Arsenal moving out of Plumstead was for v similar reasons, low crowds and not enough money before a new investor took them over and moved them North

I thought I'd read about low attendances and not enough money, similar to what Wimbledon had before the move to Milton Keynes. Not that I agree with it it but it's the same principle, moving a club away from it's local area.

[bovril]

When and why did the word "performative" start to be used so much in Britain for seemingly any behavior the user dislikes? It's like people in this country really struggle to accept others may genuinely act in a different way or believe different things. 

[leicsmac]

5 minutes ago, bovril said:

When and why did the word "performative" start to be used so much in Britain for seemingly any behavior the user dislikes? It's like people in this country really struggle to accept others may genuinely act in a different way or believe different things. 

I tend to find it often used by the self-interested against those who engage in acts of selflessness, as if they can't fathom that other human beings aren't all driven to act self-centred in the way that they do and that it must be some kind of show or trick with hidden personal gain.

[grobyfox1990]

11 minutes ago, bovril said:

When and why did the word "performative" start to be used so much in Britain for seemingly any behavior the user dislikes? It's like people in this country really struggle to accept others may genuinely act in a different way or believe different things. 

Latest social media trend. Once some random podcaster like Gary Neville or Andrew haberman starts using another word people will stop performatively using performative 

[Sampson]

29 minutes ago, bovril said:

When and why did the word "performative" start to be used so much in Britain for seemingly any behavior the user dislikes? It's like people in this country really struggle to accept others may genuinely act in a different way or believe different things. 

I think one of the huge problems with the social internet is that it has produced a society of an insane amount of cynicism about everything that goes way beyond “healthy scepticism” and “don’t believe everything you read” into “be cynical of everything” and “don’t believe anything you read.”

 

People don’t take people earnestly or on their word anymore and so assume everyone is performing and always have to find some terrible angle or noticeably cruel take on everything. 

 

In a way, I think the social internet has almost caused a lot of adults and thus much of politics and society to regress to being 13 year old teenagers again - that kind of everyone is fake or sheeple, you can’t just like that band/book/film, you have to be a poser or un-earnestly faking it attitude. And that kind of teenage attitude of assuming everyone else are just sheeple always just performing has really gotten its claws into politics and society over the past 10-15 years.
 

It is a hard balance to get right though - a balance of healthy scepticism without spilling over into cynicism - but I think a lot of the social internet is kind of geared towards pushing that healthy scepticism way too far. 

Edited 24 April by Sampson

[leicsmac]

10 minutes ago, Sampson said:

I think one of the huge problems with the social internet is that it has produced a society of an insane amount of cynicism about everything that goes way beyond “healthy scepticism” and “don’t believe everything you read” into “be cynical of everything” and “don’t believe anything you read.”

 

People don’t take people earnestly or on their word anymore and so assume everyone is performing and always have to find some terrible angle or noticeably cruel take on everything. 

 

In a way, I think the social internet has almost caused a lot of adults and thus much of politics and society to regress to being 13 year old teenagers again - that kind of everyone is fake or sheeple, you can’t just like that band/book/film, you have to be a poser or un-earnestly faking it attitude. And that kind of teenage attitude of assuming everyone else are just sheeple always just performing has really gotten its claws into politics and society over the past 10-15 years.
 

It is a hard balance to get right though - a balance of healthy scepticism without spilling over into cynicism - but I think a lot of the social internet is kind of geared towards pushing that healthy scepticism way too far. 

Exactly right. 

 

And it's fed into the whole "there is no such thing as society" stance that's been around since the 80s, and resulted in a critical lack of trust between people. 

 

That doesn't end well. Not often, probably not ever. 

[bovril]

Obviously 30 something's not being able to afford to buy a house in Britain is not Osama bin Laden's fault but 9/11 feels more and more like the inflection point, the moment when living standards for your average working person in the west started to slowly decay. I regularly think about this in my more existential moments such as on wistful spring evenings as this one.  

[bovril]

2 hours ago, Sampson said:

I think one of the huge problems with the social internet is that it has produced a society of an insane amount of cynicism about everything that goes way beyond “healthy scepticism” and “don’t believe everything you read” into “be cynical of everything” and “don’t believe anything you read.”

 

People don’t take people earnestly or on their word anymore and so assume everyone is performing and always have to find some terrible angle or noticeably cruel take on everything. 

 

In a way, I think the social internet has almost caused a lot of adults and thus much of politics and society to regress to being 13 year old teenagers again - that kind of everyone is fake or sheeple, you can’t just like that band/book/film, you have to be a poser or un-earnestly faking it attitude. And that kind of teenage attitude of assuming everyone else are just sheeple always just performing has really gotten its claws into politics and society over the past 10-15 years.
 

It is a hard balance to get right though - a balance of healthy scepticism without spilling over into cynicism - but I think a lot of the social internet is kind of geared towards pushing that healthy scepticism way too far. 

Believing in things is gay and cringe

[Sampson]

27 minutes ago, bovril said:

Obviously 30 something's not being able to afford to buy a house in Britain is not Osama bin Laden's fault but 9/11 feels more and more like the inflection point, the moment when living standards for your average working person in the west started to slowly decay. I regularly think about this in my more existential moments such as on wistful spring evenings as this one.  

I actually see the 2008 financial crisis as the big “before and after” moment and think 9/11 didn’t really have as much of an impact as other 21st century moments like the financial crisis, Orban/Balsanaro/Erdogan starting the age of populism, brexit, Covid, Ukrainian war etc.

 

 

[Sampson]

39 minutes ago, bovril said:

Believing in things is gay and cringe

I used to have a theory that South Park getting popular in Europe was a big part of the importation of that very ultra-cynical American Libertarianism philosophy of “let’s just attack all sides of the debate and not stand for anything but just stand against everything, because caring about anything is for losers” to Europe but idk.

Edited 24 April by Sampson

[CornwallFox]

46 minutes ago, bovril said:

Obviously 30 something's not being able to afford to buy a house in Britain is not Osama bin Laden's fault but 9/11 feels more and more like the inflection point, the moment when living standards for your average working person in the west started to slowly decay. I regularly think about this in my more existential moments such as on wistful spring evenings as this one.  

It was 2008 and the fact it was falsely used to enact austerity. Austerity is the cause. 

[bovril]

7 minutes ago, CornwallFox said:

It was 2008 and the fact it was falsely used to enact austerity. Austerity is the cause. 

Austerity isn't the main cause of the 21st century malaise in the west which of course is not only the UK. Neither is 9/11 the main cause but it does feel to me ow more than ever like the precise moment the messiness of the world came crashing into comfortable gated community that the west had built post war, which we are now realizing we can't rebuild. 

[CornwallFox]

Just now, bovril said:

Austerity isn't the main cause of the 21st century malaise in the west which of course is not only the UK. Neither is 9/11 the main cause but it does feel to me ow more than ever like the precise moment the messiness of the world came crashing into comfortable gated community that the west had built post war, which we are now realizing we can't rebuild. 

I don't see any link. 9/11 was 2001. Living standards were rising well beyond that. Brown was running a surplus after that. 

The reality is capitalism is failing ordinary people. It always existed too funnel wealth upwards, but it's now taking such a large slice that's not enough left for people to live on, and tax rates are going upwards because of how much of the national wealth is sat as assets instead of being liquid in the economy. 

This isn't a call for any particular alternative system but there needs to be recognition that the system itself has failed.

[bovril]

Oh we're playing tonight

[CornwallFox]

Just now, bovril said:

Oh we're playing tonight

Millwall are anyway

[bovril]

2 minutes ago, CornwallFox said:

I don't see any link. 9/11 was 2001. Living standards were rising well beyond that. Brown was running a surplus after that. 

The reality is capitalism is failing ordinary people. It always existed too funnel wealth upwards, but it's now taking such a large slice that's not enough left for people to live on, and tax rates are going upwards because of how much of the national wealth is sat as assets instead of being liquid in the economy. 

This isn't a call for any particular alternative system but there needs to be recognition that the system itself has failed.

I shouldn't have used "living standards". Quality of life? Which is not only economic. The surveillance state, terrorism, immigration from the ME, exposure to extreme content online. Obviously 9/11 didn't totally start those things alone but as I said it feels to me like the inflection point for when everything started to get shitter. 

[Zear0]

Just now, CornwallFox said:

I don't see any link. 9/11 was 2001. Living standards were rising well beyond that. Brown was running a surplus after that. 

The reality is capitalism is failing ordinary people. It always existed too funnel wealth upwards, but it's now taking such a large slice that's not enough left for people to live on, and tax rates are going upwards because of how much of the national wealth is sat as assets instead of being liquid in the economy. 

This isn't a call for any particular alternative system but there needs to be recognition that the system itself has failed.

A lot of those issues are UK specific, the decline of western society has been far more global.  Do agree that we're at the death throws of capitalism as we know it and I can't look past COVID for this.  The inflationary shock and excessive capital through QE and people not spending flushed companies with margins and profit they'd never dreamt of due to a singular event.  I deal with companies now who operate to the same COVID inflated margins and nobody is budging.  It's causing more and more inequality and people are being bled to be served absolute slop.  Capitalism worked when they were worked under the premise of "don't take the piss" which has been further annihilated by Trump.

[bovril]

1 minute ago, bovril said:

I shouldn't have used "living standards". Quality of life? Which is not only economic. The surveillance state, terrorism, immigration from the ME, exposure to extreme content online. Obviously 9/11 didn't totally start those things alone but as I said it feels to me like the inflection point for when everything started to get shitter. 

Maybe I just haven't got over Peter Taylor and leaving school

[Sampson]

11 hours ago, Zear0 said:

A lot of those issues are UK specific, the decline of western society has been far more global.  Do agree that we're at the death throes of capitalism as we know it and I can't look past COVID for this.  The inflationary shock and excessive capital through QE and people not spending flushed companies with margins and profit they'd never dreamt of due to a singular event.  I deal with companies now who operate to the same COVID inflated margins and nobody is budging.  It's causing more and more inequality and people are being bled to be served absolute slop.  Capitalism worked when they were worked under the premise of "don't take the piss" which has been further annihilated by Trump.

 I think we all have different opinions on this. I agree with CornwallFox that the financial crisis was the inflection point but not necessarily austerity as although some parts have been more pronounced in the uk . quality of life has been falling in every western country, even those who remained social democratic after the end of the post-war consensus period at the end of the 1970s. 
 

For me, capitalism had already blown its load before Covid, although Covid has massively accelerated it. I used to consider myself a liberal but I’ve definitely become more left wing over the past few years because I just can’t escape that a lot of the things the left used to say in the 80s and 90s about capitalism have come true. 
 

I do think capitalism can be fantastic for a generation or two, it can and did “grow the pie” as Liz Truss said. It did allow a lot of people to become comfortable and it did grow the middle class and upper working class and allowed a lot of people from generations of struggling to genuinely work hard and be able to give more comfortable and better lives to them and their family - and if thar happens then the  growing inequality between the corporate class and the middle and upper working classes doesn’t really matter because it’s causing most of the country to have better lives.

 

But I think like technology or sporting achievement it operates on a bell curve - and you eventually get to a point where the corporate class get too rich and begin the squeeze the middle and upper working classes, because they’ve hoovered up most of the housing, because corporate classes have more and more of the economy sitting in bank accounts earning interest as opposed to the working and middle classes who spend more and keep it circulating. Or they’ve got more and more of a monopoly or oligarchy that take more power from the state.

 

You see it in football or F1 - the quality of both massively improved when the sky money first came in, but eventually it just caused a much less competitive and meant the middle of the pack couldn’t really compete anymore. 

 

Covid was definitely a huge accelerator in that it’s allowed an oligarchy of tech companies to almost corner and control the world market - certainty the American market. And the richest companies and people have gone from being hundreds of millionaires or tens of billionaires to becoming trillionaires and richer than basically all countries but the US and China. Not to mention their control over data and information through stuff like Palantir and Twitter means Peter Thiel and Elon Musk are basically richer and more powerful than the countries of the United Kingdom, France, Germany or Japan nowadays. 
 

With regards to the surveillance state, 9/11 definitely does have part of that. But I think bad actors have just been clever in using emotional individual cases to shouting about “getting hard on crime and immigration” for votes and power (not just politicians, people like Musk and Thiel are at the forefront of this because they get so rich off it). 

 

I think a lot of people still naively feel that “getting tough on crime and immigration” still means just hiring extra police or border guards in 2026 in an era where AI can find in a couple of minutes every drunk or half asleep and on auto-pilot Google search and post online a person made from 20 years ago they don’t even remember and present them out of context in a couple of minutes and employers or authorities can make decisions based on these, or it actually meaning more biometric checks for everyone, more facial recognition technology and AI driven cameras in normal streets, it means hotels sharing data with everyone’s stay, it means health services sharing data with everyone’s visits to the gp or hospital, it means making it easier to go through everyone’s bank transactions etc. 

I also think so much of the surveillance state actually comes through private companies and so much of our media that predicted these things predicted them to come through the government which is why it has been easier to enact that expected. Most people understandably have scepticism towards too much government power, but not enough people have had enough scepticism towards mega-corporate power as well, which has meant it was easier for this to all come through fighting for deregulation and corporations be able to create these massive data sharing and mining schemes like Palantir. 
 

This is probably just rambling nonsense in 2026 though. Dunno how much of this will still look the same in 5 or 10 years

Edited 25 April by Sampson

[Grebfromgrebland]

18 hours ago, bovril said:

Obviously 30 something's not being able to afford to buy a house in Britain is not Osama bin Laden's fault but 9/11 feels more and more like the inflection point, the moment when living standards for your average working person in the west started to slowly decay. I regularly think about this in my more existential moments such as on wistful spring evenings as this one.  

What's Bin Laden got to do with 911?

[bovril]

28 minutes ago, Grebfromgrebland said:

What's Bin Laden got to do with 911?

Gave Mossad the explosives that they planted in the towers

[damolcfc]

My dad's neighbours all won big on the postcode lottery in Mablethorpe today, from £15000 up to £380,000

 

May dad is a twat...........

 

Don't be like my dad.........who doesn't play it......😝

[jonthefox]

That ' for league one use J21' banner is doing my head in. Does anyone have a photo of the one we did years ago?. 

Edited 26 April by jonthefox

[splinterdream]

Enjoyable The Kinks musical Sunny Afternoon at the Curve, worth a watch if you like the kinks, one of the most underrated English bands ever imo

[Parafox]

4 hours ago, splinterdream said:

Enjoyable The Kinks musical Sunny Afternoon at the Curve, worth a watch if you like the kinks, one of the most underrated English bands ever imo

 

I too enjoyed it.

 

On the contrary, we went to see Bat Out Of Hell last year. It was dreadful.

 

I don't know if was the same production team.