Bananas. Diesel. Armadillos. The square root of 1,364.
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The Random Thread: The Next Generation
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The stereotype of a working man as the head of a family with a housewife at home looking after the kids might seem dated now but certainly it’s still a relatively recent reality that’s still in living memory for a lot of people. And with that often came a more absent father figure who left the mother to look after the family and was quite happy to spend evenings and weekends at the pub (or the football) with friends.
Yes and that was exactly what I was trying to say on that point. That the all day family experience is the thing that came about in the mid 1960s not necessarily that there were no family traditions before that. Plus a lot more people were working on the day in various capacities even if most would have the day off a lot of retail and service roles carried on. One of the surprises to me was the change to stay at home all day for a full family experience only happened less than a decade before I was born (essentially the matches died out because attendances dropped, hence the shift to Boxing Day where it remains perfectly acceptable to go to watch sport but you’d see significantly more women and kids along for the ride too).
I mean if we decided now to leave straight after the turkey dinner and head out on the piss with friends we’d be castigated as dreadful husbands/parents but the truth is that was perfectly normal and almost certainly crossed the classes as it happened with football and with rugby union (which in most of England, Scotland and even Ireland is a very middle class game but not in Wales).
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leave straight after the turkey dinner and head out on the piss with friends we’d be castigated as dreadful husbands/parents
We’d be to pissed to care/notice.
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I never go shopping on Christmas Eve. My holiday has started and I don’t find shopping pleasurable at the best of times (and especially not this year) so there’s no way I’m going to waste the first day of Christmas on it.
Except this year has been so disrupted, I didn’t have everything I needed before the world ends next week, so I decided to go into town this morning to get some last-minute stuff.
AND THEY WERE PLAYING BLOODY LAST CHRISTMAS
#WHAMAGEDDON
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Are you sure that’s not a little overstated? In the original Christmas Carol, Scrooge is made out to be a bit of a dick for not giving Bob the day off for Christmas, and when the ghost of Christmas present shows him what’s happening on Christmas day, Bob is shown as having the day off to have a family meal together, and Scrooge’s nephew is having a party with friends etc. Even going back into the past, Fezziwig’s business stops to have a big Christmas party.
But also, reformed Scrooge sends a small boy to buy a turkey on Christmas morning. So it was business as usual for shops, at least.
(Actually, I’m wondering now if that scene was invented for the movie(s). I’m not 100% convinced it’s in the book.)
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(Actually, I’m wondering now if that scene was invented for the movie(s). I’m not 100% convinced it’s in the book.)
Google time on the novella. The butcher was open, he gets a cab easily enough to deliver the turkey and there are two sections referring to the streets being teeming with people going about their business. Dickens seem to back up what professor Collins said in his podcast with regard to retail and services.
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The word has a complicated history
We use a different word but have similar problems. The word middag, literally mid-day, you know, noon. The moment between noon (förmiddag, pre-midday) and afternoon (eftermiddag). Middag is traditionally eaten in the evening. Except for christmas and midsummer, the only days it’s eaten as a lunch. You know, in the mid-day.
I have a little too much of the old “christmas spirit” nudge nudge wink wink* to make complicated arguments or explanations and don’t I know it. It’s not like it’s stopped me before.
* I’m shitfaced on snaps nad berr
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Btw, How did McClaine know it wasn’t Bill Clay?
Tl:dr he recognises all the terrorists are wearing the same watches.
I personally think, in the film as it stands, it’s less a case of he knows it’s Hans for sure and more that he suspects.
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we should all be debating instead whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie or not…
We can put that debate to rest once and for all:
So the answer is yes. Yes it is a Christmas movie.
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I’ve never understood why people disagree with Die Hard being a xmas film. It’s set at the right time of year, it’s about someone striving to be reunited with their family, and it has xmas music in it.
Saying Die Hard isn’t a xmas film is like saying Home Alone isn’t a xmas film. They are essentially the same film. Lone protagonist vs overwhelming odds, extreme violence, all set in a single building.
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Naaah. I agree in most respects but kevin mcallister isnt exactly struggling to be united with family.
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Iron Man Three is my favourite Christmas movie. It’s set at the right time of year, it’s about someone striving to be reunited with their massive array of mechanical super-suits, and it’s about someone who’s just spent shitloads of money and is drinking too much.
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Counterpoint:
Home Alone is a Die Hard movie.Also:
Home Alone 2 is a Die Hard 3 movie.— Dan Slott (@DanSlott) December 25, 2020
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Yippee ki yay, ya filthy animal!
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Keep the change, motherfucker!
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Thinking about Christmas traditions, has anyone else ever wondered about the “lump of coal” Santa supposedly leaves in the stockings of naughty children? First of all, this was from a time when lumps of coal were useful. I mean, if you are a naughty kid and would like to, say, catch something on fire, then, you know, “thanks, Santa, for the encouragement.” Sure, it’s not a reward, but it is not a significant punishment either. It’s not like he puts some naked razors or broken glass in the stocking – that would be a punishment. Maybe it’s a warning – like the coal is a metaphor for the fires of hell if you don’t change your ways.
However, seems likely that it is lump of coal because that is something the parents would have at hand. Obviously, it’s the parents filling the stockings on Santa’s behalf so it would have to be something they could get their hands on. Which leads me to another deduction here… parents would actually put lumps of coal in the stockings of their children! It would have to be something that they did on a regular basis for it to become part of the tradition.
And those would have to be some shit parents. They’re basically scarring these kids. “Well, Jubal, it’s official. Not only do we think you’re a piece of crap, but Santa does too.” Or maybe they are gaslighting the kids. “Jubal, we’ve always thought you were a nice boy, but apparently Santa knows something we don’t. Is there something you should tell us, Jubal?”
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I’ve always hated the Sinterklaas tradition here, which is similar to the tradition of Father Christmas. Without going into Zwarte Piet, it is a tradition where kids were threatened of being abducted by Sinterklaas and his henchmen if they were naughty, and taken to his lair in Spain, where they will do God knows what to you. Pretty sick. During my lifetime I think the abduction threat was dropped from the Sinterklaas celebration at some point. But it’s still weird as fuck. If this is our proud tradition, I think we can do without it.
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David Sedaris has a whole act about learning about the Sinterklaas in Holland and finding it extremely disturbing. Yeah, the threat of potential kidnapping by an immortal old Spanish man and his black, possibly demonic slaves is definitely a strange way to get your kids in the mood for the Holidays.
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My brother and friends all have kids and they spend pretty much all their time with them except when they are at work and the kids are at school. When I was a kid, once I got home, my parents didn’t care what I did as long as I was home (or at a friend’s home) for dinner. When my parents were kids, their parents didn’t care if they came home for a week. When my grandparents were kids, my great grandparents wouldn’t be too shook up if they died.
When my great grandparents were kids, their parents were actively trying to get them killed and make it look like an accident.
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I actually heard someone on the morning news program this morning relating “Boxing Day” to the use of boxes to put Christmas presents in. Granted, this is America and knowledge/intelligence is not a prerequisite for being a News personality, and it was an off-hand remark rather than a news story, but still…a simple Wikipedia or Google search could give him the right explanation in under two minutes.
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Thinking about Christmas traditions, has anyone else ever wondered about the “lump of coal” Santa supposedly leaves in the stockings of naughty children? First of all, this was from a time when lumps of coal were useful. I mean, if you are a naughty kid and would like to, say, catch something on fire, then, you know, “thanks, Santa, for the encouragement.” Sure, it’s not a reward, but it is not a significant punishment either. It’s not like he puts some naked razors or broken glass in the stocking – that would be a punishment. Maybe it’s a warning – like the coal is a metaphor for the fires of hell if you don’t change your ways.
However, seems likely that it is lump of coal because that is something the parents would have at hand. Obviously, it’s the parents filling the stockings on Santa’s behalf so it would have to be something they could get their hands on. Which leads me to another deduction here… parents would actually put lumps of coal in the stockings of their children! It would have to be something that they did on a regular basis for it to become part of the tradition.
And those would have to be some shit parents. They’re basically scarring these kids. “Well, Jubal, it’s official. Not only do we think you’re a piece of crap, but Santa does too.” Or maybe they are gaslighting the kids. “Jubal, we’ve always thought you were a nice boy, but apparently Santa knows something we don’t. Is there something you should tell us, Jubal?”
Yeah, turns out it started out as an actual gift, kind of like giving socks or something today.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/12/why-coal-symbolizes-naughtiness/578857/
In the 19th century, when the modern forms of both Christmas and Santa Claus were developing, there was little mention of punishing naughty children with coal. The most famous depiction of Santa Claus from that period, the “Account of a Visit From St. Nicholas,” imagines St. Nick as wholly benevolent, his bag containing only toys for the good little girls and boys. Even images that record his disciplinary role leave out the dark lumps: In a similar poem published two years before, “Old Santeclaus With Much Delight,” Santa states, “But where I found the children naughty, / […] I left a long, black, birchen rod” as a threat. A lash meant for punishment appears, but again no coal.
[…]
Among them is the 1892 W. D. Howells story “Christmas Every Day,” in which a little girl wishes for infinite Christmases. Howell writes that parents get stockings filled “with potatoes and pieces of coal wrapped up in tissue paper, just as they always had every Christmas.” Later in the tale, the narrator notes, “After a while, coal and potatoes began to be awfully scarce, so many had been wrapped up in tissue paper to fool papas and mammas,” suggesting that coal might have been a gag present—or, like socks, a disappointing gift for a child but a reasonable one for an adult.
[…]
In many cases, characters are downright happy to receive coal for Christmas. In one Victorian poem, a poor couple gratefully receives turkey, potatoes, and coal from a neighbor on Christmas Day. In another short story, a poor family gets piles of Christmas presents from some relatives, including a full cellar of coal.
[…]
Coal seems to adopt its punitive symbolism around the turn of the century. The material had taken over most domestic heating by then. While there were outliers, like those with expensive wood or steam heating systems, many Americans relied more and more on their local coal merchant and the ever-more distant mines. Coal was common and plentiful, features that made it a bad gift, like the switches and stones of earlier years.
Interesting stuff.
As for Sinterklaas and swarte Piet, in Germany Santa has a helper called Knecht Ruprecht who has a bundle of twigs with him. If you’d been bad, you’d get your ass whipped. Which I guess is better than being kidnapped, at least… in my childhood, he was usually just a guy dressed in black with that bundle of twigs, but apparently in some regions, he had black skin like Piet and in some he had a devil-ish appearance like Krampus. He seems to be a bit of a mix between those figures.
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It’s not a thread I frequent, but I’m constantly amazed/slightly alarmed at how popular the obituary thread is.
It’s dead popular.
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My gifts this year were beer and cookies.
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Because that thread was doing such a good job i did not want to derail it but How does Retroschmeg mean goodness? Retro is like nostalgic and schmeg means shit(?). I only know it from Red Dwarf so that is my reference. So Nostalgic Shit is interpreted as Goodness?
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It doesn’t. It’s just a stylistic choice.
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Obviously, it’s the parents filling the stockings on Santa’s behalf
WHAT???????????
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Bork bork bork. Borka borkbork, borka bork, bork bork bork? Bork Lorcan borka borka borkibork.
Borka borkbork bork borka bork (borka bork bork borka?)…
edit: Bork!!
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METH!BORK!6 users thanked author for this post.
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LOL…
What gifts did you all get, or get for yourselves?
Sorry, it’s difficult to photograph properly.
Basically, it’s Bat-Coins
Batman needs rebranding. His “animal friends” caused COVID. Can we have a post-Covid world with a Batman as a major figure?
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Happy new year dwellers in the past (apart from Andrew).
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Happy new year dwellers in the past (apart from Andrew).
Andrew might be in Australia but he’s also an Oasis fan.
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Andrew might be in Australia but he’s also an Oasis fan.
Are you saying he’s still in 1996?
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Andrew might be in Australia but he’s also an Oasis fan.
Are you saying he’s still in 1996?
That was kind of the joke, yes.
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In my defense, I’m sober.
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I don’t have a defence.
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Looking back, I can’t believe 2020 graced us with an actual photo of David Meadows. Shit was WILD!
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Looking back, I can’t believe 2020 graced us with an actual photo of David Meadows. Shit was WILD!
Did this happen before I joined the board, or are you on hallucinogenics again?
It was a little while back. I’ll repost it here for posterity.
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Did this happen before I joined the board
I think so, yeah. Timnadette was still around. I don’t remember what thread it was but it could’ve been the David Meadows haircut thread.
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Looking back, I can’t believe 2020 graced us with an actual photo of David Meadows. Shit was WILD!
What????
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it could’ve been the David Meadows haircut thread.
Oh, damn.
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But Meadows has posted DOZENS of photos of himself — one for every concert he attended, if I recall correctly.
Like this beautiful photo of David taking a shower:
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But Meadows has posted DOZENS of photos of himself — one for every concert he attended, if I recall correctly.
Like this beautiful photo of David taking a shower:
Did you post that picture to sexually arouse people? Asking for a friend.
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Did you post that picture to sexually arouse people? Asking for a friend.
Not exclusively…
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It’s not a thread I frequent, but I’m constantly amazed/slightly alarmed at how popular the obituary thread is.
I can’t remember who said that they always read the obituary page first thing in the morning just to see if they are in them. One day, they’ll be right.
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Cancel Culture is basically the new buzzword for suffering the consequences of one’s actions, only now it can be directed by anyone as opposed to who media companies decide are bad so it’s bad all of a sudden
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We’ll see if Epstein, Spacey and Weinstein have the same rise after the fall. What? It’s not like any of them killed themselves.
Still, that actually isn’t the way most people use “cancelled” anymore. There is a confusion between personal scandal – like Weinstein – and offensive opinions, like Rowling that Al-x mentions above. Most of the reports of “cancelled” celebrities are in the realm of gossip reporting and hardly any of the people who were cancelled actually were run out of the business, lost all their friends and fans or even stopped making millions of dollars. Many influencers in contemporary media have ridden the cancel train to their benefit actually. In this realm, it is overused, though often, such as in the case of Rowling, she’s entering and remaining in an active political struggle almost definitely in the wrong for the most part, so she’s inviting continued criticism. However, it also seems like she’s willing to do so and I can’t say she’s been destroyed by it. The cancellation is weak in this one. Still, the almost ritualized cancellation of someone over their bad opinions is never going to have a strong or lasting effect. It’s really only going to be important to people actively involved in the debate and in that echo chamber, it will sound much louder than it does for the majority of the fans who are more offended that Michael Gambon never read a Harry Potter book than at whatever Rowling thinks of transgender women.
Personal abusive behavior, though, is a different and far more serious topic that calling it “cancelled” is not accurate or even appropriate in most cases. Like Lorcan points out, it is consequences for actions, and not for opinions. Even in these cases, though, it is rather weak. Out of the people who were caught committing the abuses – they are probably the minority compared to those who got away with it and continue to do so. Also, how many, like Jimmy Savile, are only revealed long after the crimes were committed? Even then, it’s not conceivable that they did it all on their own without an entire support group enabling and covering for them. In sports, it is not credible that the associations raking in money and gaining popularity from athletes like Lance Armstrong, A-Rod or Sharapova were not involved in helping their stars avoid getting caught. However, no one in a position of authority faces any consequences for that.
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There are others who said things and got the cold shoulder, like that punk who made that smirk to that old Native American complained about being cancelled. Everybody wanted to deck him, and he probably is realizing now that his picture will be used against him every college admission office he goes to.
That dude doesn’t have to worry about college admission, he is a multi millionaire thanks to a lawsuit against CNN.
“Cancel culture” is an overhyped thing. If you have controversial opinions, some people may de-friend you or choose not to invite you somewhere, but there are other venues where you will be invited. There is a market for black sheep, as long as you’re not a frothing lunatic. Bill Burr once said there should be a “disgraced” tv channel where all the cancelled celebs could go while they were persona non grata.
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It’s also often self-defeating. No matter how much some activists try to cancel Trump or any conservative politician, it won’t work because the critics – “cancellours”? – are often left-wing or perceived to be. So, the targets don’t need to worry about what their accusers say or write since their conservative supporters are going to keep them in office regardless.
So, in regard to opinions, rather than actual abusive behavior, cancellation only has an effect against celebrities who’ve actively chosen to be on the same political side generally as the cancelerati which ends up damaging activism by hurting the reputation and influence of someone willing to risk their career to promote some cause they side with AND presenting the impression that leftists actually are concerned with policing thought as much as action.
In reality, of course, it probably results from the encouragement of often heated debate among a variety of very different political objectives in left leaning circles while conservatives used to prefer solidarity and avoided in-fighting. However, you certainly see the same sort of thing happen – especially in the division between pro-Trump and anti-Trump – only they don’t call it “canceled.”
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presenting the impression that leftists actually are concerned with policing thought as much as action.
Welll they do, but then I guess everybody does. People “cancel” things all the time, it’s only natural. I cancelled Star Wars when I thought they started to suck. I don’t have to see a movie I think is not appealing to me, and people in the media don’t have to invite speakers who they think have abhorrent views.
I think it’s a natural process, kinda. But there also has to be a counter force, that tries to unite people with different, clashing views, to keep things together. I think this comes in waves, you get periods of polarization and periods where people learn to talk to each other and compromise.
Of course it depends on how extreme the views are, there is little dialogue possible with someone who calls for the murder of their opponents. We had a tv program in the Netherlands years ago where controversial people were invited to speak, and their detractors could engage in debate with them. That was pretty cool. But nobody should be forced to be polite to someone who wants you dead.
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I don’t think the majority of people give enough of a crap to care. If you’re actively involved in something and jump on the cancel wagon, then certainly it will seem like that this is big news and ‘everybody’ is talking/posting about it. However, I think that’s just people finding what they are looking for while most people or fans of whoever just got “cancelled” aren’t even interested or seeing the news.
If anything, if you express any interest at all in the stories, the way algorithms seem to work on all the social media platforms, you’ll see more and more of it every time you go online.
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I don’t think the majority of people give enough of a crap to care.
I agree. Which is why ‘cancel culture’ is extremely overstated. Look at the Rowling case, she’s taken a stance on a divisive subject, which causes some to go against her and boycott her work, some to rally to her side, and the majority to shrug their shoulders and carry on. Her books still sell, her movies were on a back to back marathon on Sky Movies yesterday.
So not really cancelled but more challenged.
I think Lorcan makes a very good point that the annoyance is this ability to challenge and judge has moved from the press to users of social media outside their control. In the UK at least the tabloids have traded off building people up t0 knock them down. They’ve thrown loads of people under the bus for saying the wrong thing for decades.
This for example is their reaction to former England football coach Glenn Hoddle who had religious beliefs that people with disabilities were paying for sins in a past life:
Two right wing papers actively demanding he be sacked (which he was soon after). Obviously I strongly disagree with his views but this is literally someone being turfed out of their job not because of anything they’ve done but something they’ve said and the press are at the heart of driving it: “The Sun demands it”.
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Basically if you say something that is politically incorrect
I still hate the term “politically incorrect”; it’s a euphemism for when people say sexist, racist, homo-/transphobic or otherwise demeaning things and as a term it was introduced by the political right to downplay criticism of such statements.
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Basically if you say something that is politically incorrect
I still hate the term “politically incorrect”; it’s a euphemism for when people say sexist, racist, homo-/transphobic or otherwise demeaning things and as a term it was introduced by the political right to downplay criticism of such statements.
I like the old comedy routine (I forget who it was) who said that it you substitute the phrase “political correctness” with “treating people with dignity and respect” in any sentence it gives you a better flavour of the speaker’s true meaning.
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Bill Burr once said there should be a “disgraced” tv channel where all the cancelled celebs could go while they were persona non grata.
A bunch of people who have been banned from one or more platforms for being awful like Gavin McInnis, Laura Loomer and Milo Yiannopoulos are actually running a website where they collectively share their wonderful opinions these days.
It’s about as successful as you might think.
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the cancelerati
Not the term they deserve, but the term we need right now. The Cancelerati council of cancelling.
I still hate the term “politically incorrect”; it’s a euphemism for when people say sexist, racist, homo-/transphobic or otherwise demeaning things
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No sane person ever ventures into the comments on a YouTube video.
I don’t think that’s true anymore. All surface level top comments I read on the kind of videos I watch are mostly harmless meme-jokes. But I watch pretty popular shit and not a lot of opinionated stuff, so the top comments mostly have thousands of likes. And I never press that “down” button to see replies either.
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Much quicker to read a tweet to leave abusive comments under than watch a whole video.
You’re charitably assuming people bother watching any of the video before commenting.
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Tea?
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I think they have websites for that in the ‘dark’ web.
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