UK Amazon Kindle Forum discussion

Every now and again, I write something on my blog. Normally it's just random wittering about something or other. I thought I would post here when I have a new entry. This may be a Bad Thing, but if it is, I'm sure Patti will delete this. Or sin bin it. Or something. Unfortunately, try as I might, I can't make the 'This topic is about' box say 'bacon'. I apologise Patti. I did try. ;-)

So today, after reading something on Jim's blog about education and stuff - it's probably on his thread; see Prawns for Patti thread - I ended up having a kind of parallel rant.

And I'd quite like to share it with you, here.

http://wp.me/pJIxY-FO

Holds breath, closes eyes, puts fingers in ears and waits for Patti's wrath ...

Cheers

MTM

I did read your blog on Facebook earlier, and I like your ideas :) I also liked your "Nylon-haired hate-carrot". Which makes me think of Captain Carrot in the Discworld, which then makes me wish we could dump trump in The Shades. My brain is butterflying around like crazy at the moment....

One of my friends refers to him as the Mango in Chief.

I always read your blog posts when I see them on Facebook.

I'm pleased you're going to post links to them here so I won't miss any due to the vagaries of Facebook feed algorithms.

That doesn't mean you can not also give me bacon.

Mary, that was a magnificent rant. Jim hasn't cornered the market on common sense.

Gingerlily - Mistress Lantern wrote: "I did read your blog on Facebook earlier, and I like your ideas :) I also liked your "Nylon-haired hate-carrot". ..."

It's one of those phrases, like 'Cheese eating surrender monkeys' which might go round the world if the right person borrows it :-)

Patti (baconater) wrote: "Mary, that was a magnificent rant. Jim hasn't cornered the market on common sense."

I thought it was a cracking blog. I do wonder if, in response to the drivel that's coming from 'the great' and 'the good' whether more normal people aren't being provoked into telling it like it is

Normal? Our Mary?

She's many wonderful things but I'd not demean her by referring to her as 'normal'. ;)

Patti (baconater) wrote: "Normal? Our Mary?

She's many wonderful things but I'd not demean her by referring to her as 'normal'. ;)"

Compared to some of the loonies out there, she's almost baseline normal :-)

Fair point.

Glad you liked it I wondered if I should have called him a nylon haired hitler carrot! But decided it was too inflammatory. Loved the mango in chief. Must use that.

To be honest I am seeing so much shit bandied about on the internet I just thought I should do something to try to redress the balance. :-)

Thank you for not sin binning me Patti, and everyone for reading.

Who can doubt both you and Jim speak common sense? Just sad it's a foreign language to some!

I've been having a really good debate in the comments with my editor, who is definitely quite anti immigration, even though she's a socialist! Interesting stuff.

Cheers

MTM

Here, this is interesting.

http://consiliumeducation.com/itm/201...

It is. I think maybe that's what I'm suffering from. I do think we will be one world nation at some point ... or dead.

M.T. wrote: "I've been having a really good debate in the comments with my editor, who is definitely quite anti immigration, even though she's a socialist! Interesting stuff.

Cheers

MTM"

Just read through the debate. Yes, interesting. I empathise but have a different point of view.

The problem can come when you get people who are too insistent on driving that agenda and just annoy people

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/...

I live in an area with entirely white schools because the county is over 97% 'white British'

Inflammatory headlines there, Jim. Disappointing.

We've discussed the need for empathy to be taught in the past. If not at home, at school.

And now, rather than take children to the seaside, or to the many other attractions children love, they're being taken to see mosques or the money is being paid out to have Imans make a hundred or so mile round trip to talk to the children.
because the budget is only so big, and this year children, your school trip will be a visit to a mosque in a city two hours away in a coach :-(

This is what happens when you get 'tick box' standards imposed. The people in authority don't actually care about the kids, they're just bothered about their own norms.
The fact that the kids start to equate multi-cultural with losing your trip to the seaside isn't, in their eyes, a problem

I live in a town where, if I see a coloured person, I look again to check they're not a friend of mine. We have so few non-White (and non-Chinese) here that I am probably on first name terms with a fair percentage

The question I'd ask is why aren't children from inner city schools with almost no white children being bussed out to places like Lincolnshire where they can meet and play with members of a very different community in very different surroundings? Or is it that the Lincolnshire community is regarded as having no value and their community ethos not worth affirming?

Jim wrote: "And now, rather than take children to the seaside, or to the many other attractions children love, they're being taken to see mosques or the money is being paid out to have Imans make a hundred or ..."

Very good point.

If the school's only attempt at exposing children to global issues is a trip to a mosque (which I doubt), I agree more needs to be done.

I'll have to come back to this later. Gotta get ready for work.

The kids live in a global world; there's no pretending any more that we don't know what's happening all around us.

You are hampering your kids' future if they are not prepared.

I grew up in Mexico - but that's only two cultures. At the time, Mexico was 99% Catholic - not a lot of diversity there.

One problem is that people see it as a devaluing of their culture. They feel they're being told that 'your culture is so bad/irrelevant/poor that your children must go and imbibe from the springs of this superior culture.'
If there was a genuine moving of people too and fro then it wouldn't be a problem. If they got as many busloads of inner city children with islamic background coming to learn how rural English people live and thing, they'd feel more valued.
But to put things at it's most brutal, we don't have a problem with young people from Lincolnshire going abroad to join the KKK and fight in secession wars in the USA.
Then again, if we treat their culture with contempt long enough we might

It's interesting, since writing the above I've read this article

http://www.denverpost.com/2017/01/28/...

One term I've never heard is 'majority-minority'. Effectively the white working class in America has started to vote like a minority group, effectively 'identity politics' has started cutting both ways.
We don't want to drive that here.

Jim wrote: "One problem is that people see it as a devaluing of their culture. They feel they're being told that 'your culture is so bad/irrelevant/poor that your children must go and imbibe from the springs o..."

I totally get this view. It's just a different form of racism to push minority cultures so hard that our actual national culture is left out. Also how will the immigrants who want to integrate be able to if they are taught about their own or other minority cultures at the expense of learning about the one they've come to. Balance is essential in all things I think.

'White British' has never been homogeneous. Forty two years ago I helped lead a party of White British children from Bermondsey to somewhere in Shropshire, where we met up with the local White British children. Chalk and cheese spring to mind.

I can believe that. :-)

I've seen the same with children from two junior schools four miles apart, one in Barrow and one in the villages round about. Totally different cultures, attitudes etc.
Probably less of a gap now but still a fair gap

An entirely different subject for today's rant, in case anyone has missed it.

https://mtmcguire.co.uk/2017/02/18/on...

Enjoy. ;-)

a good point well made

Very good blog post

Thanks, glad you both enjoyed it. ;-)

I cancelled my membership of the fantasy section of the Smith and Doubleday book club back in the early eighties because of their complete lack of ability to differentiate between well-written fantasy and a cover showing a woman warrior(?) in three-piece pot-lids, (two with spikes for handles), and thin leather strips. Presumably she was tougher? more agile? when it came to enduring/avoiding spear and sword thrusts ; )
I pointed out that I wanted fantastic reading material rather than soft porn - but perhaps I should also have pointed out this was sexual discrimination against the weaker sex who obviously couldn't go into battle without full body armour and a nine foot lance...

Elizabeth wrote: "I cancelled my membership of the fantasy section of the Smith and Doubleday book club back in the early eighties because of their complete lack of ability to differentiate between well-written fant..."

Mwah hahahargh! I love the discrimination line, that's a total cracker. And I'm glad I'm not the only one who takes it like this.

I was a bit worried, the only person I don't 'know' already who commented on my site basically told me I was a didactic hag trying to make the world do it my way. To whit: 'If you don’t like the covers you see, maybe it’s just because you’re not the intended audience. There’s no reason that every book written has to conform to your tastes and sensibilities.'

Even reading it now, I still want to shout, 'fuck off!' at an incredibly loud volume! Because I'm wondering how I managed to write 2,500 words, about 2000 of which were maybe I'm wrong apologetic drivel, even if the other 500 were railing, a bit, and still have the whole, I know I'm out of sync with the zeitgeist but this is how I feel tone go straight over someone's head.

This being articulate thing is hard work.

Thanks for wading through it.

Cheers

MTM

sod the zeitgeist :-)

Mwahahaaaargh! Indeed. It can fuck right off! Phnark!

Zeitgeist???

Mood of the times. Which is pretty ugly in many places right now.

Ta ;-)

MTM - I saw this and immediately thought of you for some reason...

"Then there was the whole other thing going on in his head that had him spinning, too. It was that minor issue of him falling in love with Hayley like a frozen turkey from space."

ah the joy of romantic metaphor

Gingerlily - Mistress Lantern wrote: "MTM - I saw this and immediately thought of you for some reason...

"Then there was the whole other thing going on in his head that had him spinning, too. It was that minor issue of him falling in ..."

Yep I like that. I'm trying to write a scene at the moment where a bloke visits a hooker and she discovers that rather than nookie he wants language lessons.

depends what she's charging, tuition fees aren't low :-)

http://www.thetutorpages.com/private-...

Well, they're pretending that she's actually hooking the normal way so she can't charge tuition rates. But she's a quality prozzie so she earns a fair bit anyway.

Actually there's all sorts of opportunities for professional confusion at every level

http://x.imagefapusercontent.com/u/U%...

Jim wrote: "Actually there's all sorts of opportunities for professional confusion at every level

http://x.imagefapusercontent.com/u/U%..."

She's wearing the mortarboard the wrong way round. It probably means something.

Some sort of freemason thing?

Jim wrote: "Some sort of freemason thing?"

Mwah hahaahrgh! Indubitably.

I have another blog post up today. It is as not very interesting as my other blog posts, but in a much more light hearted, humorous way.

https://mtmcguire.co.uk/2017/02/25/i-...

P Deck... *muffled snigger*

Glad you enjoyed the joke. I am doing ok with the K'Barthan one but its Space Dustmen that I'm really excited about.